German Chancellor Fellow – On Berlin’s U9 metro, listening before seeing the world is a common daily activity – English after German, Spanish after Portuguese, Arabic after Turkish and, most mornings, Hindi, Kannada and Bengali too. As a German Chancellor’s Fellow, I spent an entire year moving between Berlin policy corridors and university streets, then to small towns where “integration” became a checklist of bus timetables, first German classes, first rental contracts, first winters. The “land of poets and thinkers” is not without conflict, as appointments at the Ausländerbehörde (immigration office) will remind you, but it is largely legible.

And in today’s world of student and professional mobility, legibility is an assurance of stability. Place it next to the policy symbol of America, the country named after John F. Kennedy once called it a country of immigrants.

In early January, the US Embassy in India warned student visa holders in clear, punitive terms that breaking “US laws” would risk visa cancellation, deportation, and future ineligibility. “Visas are a privilege, not a right,” it said. Similar precautions were taken for H-1B and H-4 applicants amid reports of disruptions and long wait times in rescheduling.

This involved strict social-media scrutiny and additional procedural burdens. The message is of uncertainty. Combine this with the cost of education in America.

I’m writing this article with a personal irony – when doubt becomes policy, and paperwork becomes ideological, my US visa feels less like a destination and more like a roll of the dice.