EDUCATING THE WORLD'S BEST AND BRIGHTEST— THEN SHOWING THEM THE DOOR

AMERICA'S STATUS AS A TOP DESTINATION FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IS AT RISK.

- FIONA HARRIGAN

SUGURU ONDA WAS one year away from finishing his Ph.D. at Brigham Young University (BYU) when he received potentially life-altering news. His name had appeared in a criminal records check and his visa had been revoked. He would need to return to his native Japan right away or else face deportation.

Onda had accrued a few speeding tickets during his six years of study in the United States, but that seemed an implausible reason for losing his visa. The only other explanation, his lawyer Adam Crayk told Deseret News, was a 2019 fishing offense in which members of his church group harvested more fish than his license permitted. The charge was dismissed and Onda continued his research on computer vision and machine learning.

When Donald Trump retook the presidency in January, his administration started to revoke legal status for international students it deemed "pro-Hamas." But Onda "has little to no footprint on social media, doesn't speak out about politics, and, to our knowledge, was not involved in any protests on college campuses," reported Adam Small of Utah's KSL NewsRadio.

The same day that Onda and several other international students sued over their visa revocations, the government notified BYU that Onda's legal status was restored. It was "as if it was never revoked," Crayk told KSL.