For visa and green card holders, immigration lawyers offer advice: Don’t travel outside of the US right now

Arnoldo Benitez, an immigration lawyer licensed in Massachusetts who has offices in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, said clients have been alarmed by news reports about Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Rhode Island-based doctor with a valid H-1b visa who was deported to her native Lebanon after being refused reentry into the US, and Fabian Schmidt, a German-born man living in New Hampshire who had a green card but was detained at Logan Airport and is still being held at the Wyatt Detention facility in Rhode Island.

Immigrants and advocates have also been shaken by the recent seizure and detention of Rümeysa Öztürk, a PhD candidate at Tufts University whose apprehension by six plainsclothed agents was caught on a surveillance video, and Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student facing deportation for his role in pro-Palestinian campus protests.

“I’ve been practicing for eight years now and it wasn’t even a real question during the first Trump administration,” Benitez said. “They’re scared that they’re not going to be let back in.”

Matthew Maiona, an immigration attorney based in Boston and an adjunct professor who teaches business immigration law at Suffolk University Law School, said he’s seen an uptick in inquiries from corporate clients as well.

Companies have been changing in-person reunions to remote Zoom meetings, he said, and clients who have had travel pending for a long time have canceled their plans to leave the country.

“There’s a huge concern about the unknown,” Maiona said. “On both sides, from the companies and from the employees themselves, there’s been a lot of concern about traveling.”

“We’ve provided advice and counsel to those clients that really, unless they absolutely have to go to something, they shouldn’t do so,” he added.

Mahsa Khanbabai, an immigration attorney in North Easton who is representing Öztürk, the Tufts University graduate student, said that she tells clients that the way the Trump administration is approaching immigration is meant to “cause mass confusion and uncertainty.”

“Normally, there are guardrails related to what the government can do to individuals who are here on visas and on green cards. But those guardrails have basically just been shattered,” Khanbabai said.

“The impact on immigrants is dramatic,” she added. “I can’t overstate that. And it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen in my 25 years of practice.”

Omar Bah, a founder of the Refugee Dream Center in Providence who ran for Congress in Rhode Island in 2022, told the Globe that he faced extra scrutiny from US customs and border officials when he returned to the US from an international trip in late January, even though he has been a US citizen for more than a decade.

A former refugee who had a green card before becoming a US citizen, Bah said he faced additional questions after he told agents that he had been visiting family in Gambia, where he grew up.

“They kept going on and on, asking the same questions over and over,” he said. “They asked me what work I do. I said refugee resettlement. … Maybe that prompted more questioning.”

Bah said he knew of green card holders who are choosing not to travel.

“I support them in that, because they don’t know whether they will be allowed to come back to the country,” he said. “I don’t think it’s worth risking it.”

Pamela, who asked that only her first name be used for fear of retaliation, is a legal permanent resident of the US who is married to an American citizen. When trying to renew her green card a year ago, she said, her application was initially rejected because of an error before the renewal was granted. The mix-up was enough to make her decide not to travel internationally, in case the incident is seen as a red flag by immigration officials. She is even nervous about taking domestic flights.

“My lawyer advised me not to travel because of this issue with the error. It will come up again,” she said.

She said she plans on applying for citizenship so she can get the protections that come with it.

“I just have my husband. If something happens to my husband, what is happening with me?,” she said. “That’s my only [security] because I don’t see that this administration respects anyone.”

Maria, who also asked that only her first name be used, said that watching the news the past few weeks has been “nerve racking.”

She first came to the US in 2018. She and her husband applied for green cards in 2023, and she recently had to renew her visa. She was supposed to travel to promote a documentary she has been working on for years, but her immigration attorney recommended that people suspend their travel plans.

“I have my life here. I have my work here. I have everything here,” she said. It’s too great a risk to travel and not be allowed back into the US. “So I cannot let that happen.”

There are other worries swirling around in her head as well. “You hope that nothing happens to your family and that you have to fly back for an emergency,” she said. “If I can have my parents come here with no issues, I’d rather do that.”

Immigrants from countries targeted by the Trump administration’s new travel ban may need to be especially careful as they travel, legal experts said. The ban has a “red” list of 11 countries whose citizens would be barred from entering the United States: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. People from 10 other countries on an “orange” list — Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Turkmenistan — would face tougher visa requirements, including mandatory in-person interviews.

Raghu Mulukutla, a machine learning engineer, lives in Framingham and holds an H-1b visa.

“Obviously I’m worried about Trump’s policies, but he didn’t have anything specific on H-1b holders,” he said.

But, he said, he is worried that the Trump administration could try to revoke H4 EAD visas, a program created under the Obama administration that allows spouses of H-1b visa holders to seek employment. That would affect his wife.

“She doesn’t feel safe leaving the country because she’s from China,” he said. “This was a problem for her even before the Trump administration.”

On a 2022 visit to China she was questioned for three hours. The experience reduced her to tears.

“After that, we were, like, ‘Oh yeah, we are never leaving the country,‘” he said.

Hiawatha Bray of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

Omar Mohammed can be reached at omar.mohammed@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter (X) @shurufu. Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio can be reached at giulia.mcdnr@globe.com. Follow her @giuliamcdnr.