Impact of Visa Issues on an International Physics Graduate Student in the U.S.

More than 35 percent of the physics graduate students in the US are temporary visa holders. Many of these students work in large international collaborations and must travel abroad for research and international conferences, sometimes more than once a year. In many cases, students have to reapply for their visas in order to return to the U.S., a process that can be time-consuming and costly. Furthermore, many international students cannot leave the U.S. even in the case of an emergency because a slow visa process may mean deferring for a semester or losing financial support. Thus visa issues affect not only the scholastic life of students but also their personal lives. Finding ways to resolve these issues could positively affect the quality of graduate research by eliminating these extra hurdles to the progress of international physics graduate students.