Ruth Hardy is a State Senator for the Addison District. She delivered these remarks on the floor of the Vermont Senate on April 22, 2025.
Recently, Vermont has become a focal point for disturbing actions against international students. This includes ICE using Vermont as a stopping point for the imprisonment of a Tufts University student, Rümeysa Öztürk; the cancellation of a humanitarian parole program affecting two students at Champlain Valley Union High School; the arrest of Vermont resident and Columbia University student, Mohsen Mahdawi; and the unjustified visa revocation of a Middlebury College student.
Over the past few weeks, an estimated 1,500 students from 250 colleges nationwide have had their visas revoked, mostly without notice or reason. What does this inhumane treatment of international students tell us about the value the U.S. government puts on positive relations with foreign countries? On the lives of young people? On education in the United States?
The United States has long been a destination for international college students and a popular place for high school exchange students. And while here, these students make lasting friendships and contribute deeply to their schools and communities. Some, like Mohsen Mahdawi, stay here with the dream of becoming citizens.
There are about 35,000 college students in our state, most of them from places other than Vermont. Among my constituents are 2,500 students at Middlebury College, which bills itself as having “one of the most immersive and globally engaged experiences in higher education,” with hundreds of international students studying and dozens of international professors teaching on campus throughout the year.
My district, our state and our country have long been welcoming and encouraging to international students and professors. Yet now, the Trump administration, with reckless and inhumane abandon, is severing the rights of international students, and entrapping and imprisoning these young people without cause or care.
For the past 20 years, my family has been a local “host” family for Middlebury College international students, providing them a welcoming place to call home while they’re at college. These students have become like family to us, and we still keep in touch with each of them.
My family also spent a year living in Göttingen, Germany where my husband earned a fellowship that brought together scholars from around the world. It was part of a decades-long program to repair the bonds between German universities and academics around the world after World War II and the horrors of fascism. Now two of my daughters are studying and volunteering abroad, so I know what it’s like to send your child far away. I am sure that parents of international students studying here in the U.S. are fearing for the safety of their children in a way they never have before.
We cannot turn our backs on students from other countries who come to Vermont to live and learn. After my time in a German university town, I know that among the first people the Nazis detained and evicted were students and professors. They drained universities and scarred institutions and academics with false accusations. That is exactly what we are seeing now in America. The dozens of international faculty members who are permanent residents in my district are scared they are next.
We in Vermont cannot stand by quietly and let national leaders repeat fascist history. We must speak up and act to protect the rights and safety of international students and professors in our towns and on our campuses.
Editor’s Note: Hardy’s remarks have been lightly edited for The Campus’ style standards.
