Ban could harm international students

Winthrop University proudly bills itself as a haven for students from around the globe. We hope that spirit continues to thrive at Winthrop and anywhere that people from other nations are unfairly barred from coming to the United States.

Winthrop has welcomed students from more than 60 different nations. More than 200 international students attend Winthrop each year, many of them ultimately graduating with degrees from the university.

Winthrop’s online home site offers the story of one of such student. Dana Ghareeb, who came to the university from the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, to the United States in early 2011 and spent a year learning English in immersion courses. While at Winthrop, he threw himself into American culture, especially sports.

In 2014, he and another Iraqi student graduated with master’s degrees in sport and fitness administration.

“I often wake up in the morning and get down on my knees and thank God for everything,” Ghareeb said in an interview with Winthrop officials. “I thank God for being a part of this. It is one of the highlights of my life.”

After graduation, Ghareeb returned to the Kurdistan region to work as an assistant professor at Salahaddin University in Erbil. If he remained in Iraq, under the directive issued by President Donald Trump on Jan. 28, there is a good chance he would not be permitted to return to the United States for the foreseeable future.

Trump’s executive order, which bans travel to the U.S. from seven Muslim countries, reverberated through the United States and around the globe. Many travelers from the Mideast were caught in bureaucratic limbo, detained from boarding flights to the U.S. even if they had visas or green cards making them legal U.S. residents.

Winthrop University President Dan Hahony said Monday the effects of the ban on the school’s international students remained unclear. While he said he knew of no students who had been trapped abroad, he said the university would continue to investigate the implications of the order.

“This moment demands we reaffirm our commitment to our entire Winthrop family,” he said. “Nowhere is that commitment better expressed than through out Global Learning Initiative, which seeks to prepare our students to be educated and involved global citizens, to understand their place in global society and their responsibilities to human society at large, and to take great joy at celebrating the very rich cultures of their communities, states, regions, nations and world.”

Winthrop, over the years, has demonstrated in innumerable ways its obligation to fostering a diverse student body, including students from around the world. Not only do those international students benefit from experiencing American culture – particularly within the Winthrop community – but U.S. students also benefit from their exposure to other cultures and customs.

Trump claims that the purpose of this ban is to make America safer. We think it is more likely to make America more vulnerable, culturally poorer and less attuned to the rest of an increasingly interconnected world.

It also threatens to abet the claims of terrorist propagandists who say the U.S. is at war with Islam and use that as a rallying cry to recruit new jihadists to the cause.

The possibility that Winthrop international students could be barred from returning to campus, that graduates such as Dana Ghareeb, so grateful for the opportunity to study here, could be prevented from returning to the United States brings the issue home to roost. This is not simply a policy that affects faceless Middle Eastern immigrants in distant parts of the world but also one that can cause chaos in the lives of those who live, work and study in our own community.

We hope the spirit of promoting greater global interaction and understanding of different cultures prevails, not only at Winthrop but also throughout the United States and abroad. This mean-spirited, counterproductive ban should be reversed.

This story was originally published February 7, 2017 at 12:27 PM with the headline "Ban could harm international students."