SALT LAKE CITY — Lean Agravante never pictured himself in Salt Lake City.
“In the Philippines, I never thought I would leave,” said Agravante, a graduate student at the University of Utah, on Wednesday.
Agravante and his parents moved to South Korea and then eventually to Utah nearly 10 years ago.
“I came to the United States with hearts in my eyes,” he said. “It was the first time I considered how much broader my perspective could be on life.”
Now studying educational psychology, Agravante is a year away from graduating and has dreams of helping other international students. However, after the school said 20 students have had their visas revoked, Agravante is beginning to wonder if everything he’s worked for could be erased.
“My worries are that I could wake up one morning and my visa's revoked and then it’s time to head home,” he said. “I would have to build everything from scratch.”
Dozens of Utah university students have visas revoked by Trump administration:
A University of Utah spokesperson said half of the students are from China, and the rest are from countries including India and the Middle East. The reasons for revocation are "failure to maintain nonimmigrant status and/or criminal record check,” according to the school.
University of Utah officials said what's different from past student visa revocations is that the student records kept by the Department of Homeland Security are being terminated "sometimes without notice to the university and/or student.” None of the students, they said, were flagged for protesting.
Agravante said after seeing the news, he reached out to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System Wednesday morning to check his visa’s status.
“My biggest fear is I could’ve done everything right and still things out of my control could force me home,” he said.
Yeojin Byun, a film student who moved from South Korea to Utah a year ago, said she’s only a month away from graduating.
“I could be a victim of that situation. I don’t know, I’m very worried and concerned,” Byun said. “I don’t know who to rely on in this country, no one can really help here; none of my parents live here.”
Agravante doesn’t know what the future holds.
“For me to lose all of that now, a year away from graduating, everything I’ve been doing has been building up to this point,” he said. “It’s a lot to process.”
