Gu was looking forward to his first semester as a master’s degree student in philosophy at the University of Houston in August. The 22-year-old, who asked the Associated Press to use only his family name because of the political sensitivity of his situation, had previously studied at Cornell University, received a full scholarship, and been awarded a visa after undergoing the usual screening and U.S. State Department interview in China, according to AP.
But when he arrived at the George W. Bush International Airport after a 29-hour flight, he found himself targeted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials. He was shunted into a room, where for the next 12 hours he was questioned three times by increasingly hostile officers. Under new Trump administration policies, all international students must now routinely submit to a review of all social media accounts: His phone and computer were confiscated and searched, and he was grilled about school papers, his social media posts, and about his parents’ politics. Gu initially agreed to speak to the Texas Observer but then did not respond to further emails.
Gu has written vividly on Reddit about how his dream of an academic future in Houston ended in an airless limbo room where the lights never dimmed and the temperatures hovered at around 60 degrees. After being told his visa was being cancelled, he waited incommunicado for hours before being shuttled onto a flight home—banned for five years from re-entering the United States.
