President Valerie Sheares Ashby Invites You to Join Us for the
Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards Ceremony
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
University Center Ballroom
11:30 a.m. Community Lunch
12 p.m. Awards Ceremony
Please join me in sharing gratitude for the UMBC community, and celebrating this year’s Presidential Faculty and Staff awardees, University System of Maryland awardees, and additional distinguished university honorees.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has escalated immigration enforcement actions against noncitizens across the country. The Secretary of State cancelled the visas of multiple individuals for the stated reason that their continued presence in the country “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
More recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), began terminating the SEVIS immigration records of international students who are alleged to have criminal records or whose visas have been cancelled by the Department of State. In some cases, neither students nor their schools are being notified of these terminations.
UMBC conducts daily audits of all SEVIS immigration records it manages, and will inform affected students and scholars of changes to their immigration status as quickly as possible. Any UMBC student or employee who receives a communication from the U.S. Department Homeland Security or U.S. Department of State regarding the validity of their visa or immigration status should contact the Center for Global Engagement (CGE) immediately.
Any member of the campus community who has concerns that they may be at risk of status termination or visa revocation is encouraged to speak with a qualified immigration lawyer who specializes in deportation defense. Such attorneys may be located through the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
On April 9, 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin considering antisemitic activity on social media and the physical harassment of Jewish individuals as grounds for denying immigration benefit requests.
Executive Order 14159, issued on January 20, 2025, directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to require all noncitizens in the United States to register with the government, under section 262 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) (8 U.S.C. § 1302).
While this law has been on the books for many years, until now there was no formal process to comply with the rule apart from mandatory fingerprinting when applying for a visa abroad or submitting certain applications to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). In addition to the registration requirement itself, noncitizens are required to carry with them proof that they have satisfied the requirement, a policy known as the “document-carry” requirement. Both the new registration requirement and the document-carry requirement are set to go into effect on Friday, April 11, 2025.
Most people in F-1, J-1, or H-1B status already met the registration requirement when they applied for their visa and for entry to the United States. Proof of compliance with the registration requirement for most individuals is the Form I-94 Arrival/Departure Record, which is available online for those admitted at a U.S. port of entry, or in paper form attached to the Approval Notice issued to those who filed a change of status application within the U.S.
Among those who will need to take action to meet the new registration requirement are those who last entered the U.S. before they were 14 years of age. At UMBC, this is likely limited to individuals in F-2, J-2, or H-4 dependent status, based on a parent’s principal F-1, J-1, or H-1B status. Anyone who is the parent of an F-2, J-2, or H-4 status child who is (1) under 14 years of age and (2) was not registered (or fingerprinted, if required) when applying for their visa must register within 30 days of arrival. And anyone who is the parent of an F-2, J-2, or H-4 status child who last entered the U.S. before reaching 14 years of age is now required to register their child with DHS within the 30 days following their child’s 14th birthday.
There is a helpful guide to this new requirement available here from Cornell Law School, Penn State Dickinson Law, and the President’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. Additional resources from NAFSA: Association of International Educators are available here, and a detailed write-up of the new requirements is available from Klasko Immigration Law Partners here.
In addition to meeting the registration requirement, all noncitizens in the U.S. are required to carry proof that they have done so. As noted above, for the vast majority of individuals, their I-94 Arrival/Departure Record is their official proof of compliance with the registration requirement. Individuals can and should download a copy of their most recent I-94 record as soon as they enter the U.S. after a trip abroad. In order to ensure compliance, individuals in F-1, J-1, H-1B, and other nonimmigrant statuses are required to carry a paper copy of their I-94 record with them at all times.
We recommend printing out a copy of your I-94 record from the online system and placing it in your wallet or purse so that it is always with you. In addition, individuals in F-1 status are advised to carry a copy of their Form I-20 with them, and those in J-1 status should carry a copy of their Form DS-2019 with them at all times. Lawful permanent residents (LPRs) should always carry their green card (Form I-551) with them. Additional information about the document-carry requirement is available from NAFSA here.
Dear UMBC Community,
I write to share an update on the university’s response to federal actions and orders and the work ahead to continue undeterred in advancing our mission and vision and standing up for our institutional values.
This update is not exhaustive in reporting on every piece of work being done by our core team and others involved in our rapid response; but it provides important information in a few key areas that I know are of shared concern. We anticipate providing an update on our federally funded research, education, and training programs and projects in the coming days.
International Student Immigration Status
First, as you may know, UMBC recently discovered that the federal government terminated the F-1 immigration status of four of our international graduate students. We are running daily audits of UMBC’s records in the federal Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), and these audits revealed the record terminations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In each instance, we reached out immediately to the students. Neither UMBC nor the students received any prior notification or subsequent explanation from ICE for the terminations. Some of the affected students plan to depart the U.S. immediately, while others have engaged immigration counsel and are exploring their legal options. We are coordinating with the students and with faculty and administrators to explore options for any of these students who must depart the U.S. to complete their coursework and degree programs.
These are extremely concerning developments, and the actions affecting our international students are among hundreds of such actions that have been reported at more than 80 colleges and universities across the country. We continue to closely monitor the SEVIS records of our UMBC community members holding F-1 or J-1 status, and we will continue to provide support and guidance to our international community.
Please visit our information and resources site frequently for the latest updates on our work in response to federal actions and orders. Among other things, it includes information on international travel, updates regarding visa interview waiver eligibility, resources for international students, and guidance related to the potential for federal immigration enforcement action on campus. Please also reach out to the Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS) for additional support. My sincere thanks to the entire team in OISS for their tireless work and dedicated support of our international student and scholar community.
Budget Update
As I noted in a message before spring break, there remains much uncertainty about the scale and scope of impact of a variety of federal actions and orders on our research and, more broadly, on our university operations. While other institutions have seen massive cuts in federal research funding, leading some of them to announce austerity measures, we have not, to date, seen a similar impact. We are proceeding thoughtfully to assess existing and potential impacts and to determine what measures are needed.
One piece of clarity we now have is our funding from the state. With the close of the General Assembly session on Tuesday and its final passage of Maryland’s $67 billion budget, we know that in the coming fiscal year, UMBC will see a 7 percent reduction in its state operations budget. This is more than the 5 percent reduction we had originally expected, but given the uncertainties in recent months at both the state and federal levels, we anticipated that the state’s reduction would grow.
The University System of Maryland has directed its institutions, including UMBC, to prepare a 3-year budget projection incorporating the current cuts and anticipating additional ones, if needed. We will be engaging with members of the community, including shared governance, as we develop this projection, which will be completed by early May. We will be able to share further details about the projection, as well as the budget planning process for FY26, at that time.
Affirming Our Core Values
At UMBC, excellence is our imperative, and we define excellence as inclusive. We seek out and value a wide range of viewpoints and backgrounds and work to ensure that our university community is welcoming and safe to all. We know excellence in the pursuit of knowledge requires a wide range of inputs and perspectives; we know that excellence in teaching means providing safe environments that welcome a range of viewpoints and foster learning across differences; and we know that excellence in community engagement means we must always ask how can we better serve our communities? whose communities have we not engaged?
Time and again, I have heard this community express to me its commitment to inclusive excellence. As we uphold state and federal laws and our own university policies, we will not step back from our commitment to our deeply held values.
In addition to inclusive excellence, academic freedom and free speech remain core values that are imperative to our academic excellence and to the advancement of our public-serving mission. We remain committed to academic freedom across all of our disciplines—in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences and engineering–and will continue to uphold this value that is fundamental to higher education.
In Gratitude
In addition to the thanks I have shared above to the team in OISS, I want to extend gratitude to all in this extraordinary community who are working every day to protect and advance the critical importance of the university and its work and to demonstrate the impact of our work to the wider world.
I am grateful, as well, to the many who have asked, “How can I help?” I appreciate the questions and the ideas that we have seen emerge, sometimes turned into quick action. One example of that is the website of resources for displaced federal workers and the Paws and Pivot webinar series launched to provide practical resources and community for individuals affected by recent federal workforce changes. Thank you to the Alumni Engagement and Career Center teams for their incredible work to stand up these resources in record time.
In the midst of such challenging times that I know weigh heavily on many, this and other stories inspire and encourage us all to carry on with our important work, knowing the meaningful difference it makes to individuals and communities. Thank you, and we will be in touch with you again soon.
Sincerely,
President Valerie Sheares Ashby