LONDON — The world may be rethinking the American dream.
For centuries, people in other countries saw the United States as a place of welcome and opportunity. Now, President Trump’s drive for mass deportations of migrants is riling the streets of Los Angeles, college campuses, even churches — and fueling a global rethinking about the virtues and promise of coming to America.
“The message coming from Washington is that you are not welcome in the United States,” said Edwin van Rest, CEO of Studyportals, which tracks real-time searches by international students considering studying in other countries. Student interest in studying in America has dropped to its lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, it found. ”The fact is, there are great opportunities elsewhere.”
The U.S. still beckons to the “huddled masses” from the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, and the strong economy has helped draw millions more every year, with the inflow driving the U.S. population over 340 million.
But there are signs in industries — tourism, trade, entertainment and education — that suggest the draw of the American dream may be fading for foreigners who have historically flooded to the U.S.
Polling by Pew Research Center from January through April found that opinions of the U.S. have suffered over the past year in 15 of the 24 countries it surveyed.
Mr. Trump and many of his supporters maintain that migrants in the country illegally threaten American safety, jobs and culture. But people in the country legally also have been caught in Mr. Trump’s dragnet. And that makes prospective visitors to the U.S., even as tourists, leery.
Mr. Trump’s global tariff war and his campaign against international students who have expressed pro-Palestinian sympathies stick especially stubbornly in the minds of people across American borders who for decades clamored to participate in the land of free speech and opportunity.
“The chances of something truly horrific happening are almost certainly tiny,” Duncan Greaves, 62, of Queensland, Australia, advised a Reddit user asking whether to risk a vacation to the land of barbeques, big sky country and July 4 fireworks. “Basically it’s like the Dirty Harry quote: ‘Do you feel lucky?’”
For much of its history, America had encouraged immigration as the country sought intellectual and economic fuel to spur its growth.
But from the beginning, the United States has struggled with the question of who is allowed to be an American, from the Indians who were pushed off the land by incoming settlers to the millions of Africans brought to the U.S. as slaves.
Still, the United States has always been a nation of immigrants, steered by the “American Creed” developed by Thomas Jefferson, which posits that the tenets of equality, hard work and freedom are inherently American.
Immigration in 2024 drove U.S. population growth to its fastest rate in 23 years as the nation surpassed 340 million residents, the U.S. Census Bureau said in December. Almost 2.8 million more people immigrated to the United States last year than in 2023, partly because of a new method of counting that adds people who were admitted for humanitarian reasons. Net international migration accounted for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million-person increase in the most recent data reported.
Immigration accounted for all of the growth in 16 states that otherwise would have lost population, according to the Brookings Institution.
The U.S. is still viewed as an economic powerhouse, though people in more countries consider China to be the world’s top economy, according to the Pew poll, and it’s unclear whether Mr. Trump’s policies could cause a meaningful drain of international students and others who feel under siege in the United States.
Netherlands-based Studyportals, which analyzes the searches for international schools by millions of students worldwide, reported that weekly pageviews for degrees in the U.S, collapsed by half between Jan. 5 and the end of April. It predicted that if the trend continues, the demand for programs in the U.S. could fall further, with U.S. programs losing ground to countries like the United Kingdom and Australia.
“International students and their families seek predictability and security when choosing which country to trust with their future,” said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, which represents international educators. “The U.S. government’s recent actions have naturally shaken their confidence in the United States.”
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