Dive Brief:
- The growing concern among higher education advocacy groups about the prospects of President Donald Trump's immigration agenda — specifically, the construction of a border wall between the United States and Mexico — is highlighted in a recent Inside Higher Ed article.
- Some stakeholders believe that the symbol of the wall, and the campaign rhetoric about Mexicans and their access to the United States, could irreparably harm collaboration and exchange agreements with the country.
- “The wall is a kind of symbol that says everything just literally stops at the territorial border, but the local air shed for air pollution or the ground river or the river water don’t stop at the border,” Josiah Heyman, director of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies and a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso, told Inside Higher Ed.
Dive Insight:
If minority students from varying states throughout the nation are concerned about the rising culture of separatism on college campuses, colleges should reasonably expect similar reactions from international communities around the world. Leaders should consider alternatives for current research opportunities with nations like Mexico and Cuba and Middle Eastern countries, because if federal policies limit research or temporary visas for international students and faculty, colleges will be left with an undue burden of funding projects left undone.