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It is election season within the United States, and the Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York is working to ensure that students will become registered voters via their ROAR the Vote initiative.
“ROAR the Vote supports students' involvement in electoral politics by helping to ensure that students understand the voting process,” Alex Trubridy, Civic Engagement Coordinator at the Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement, explains, “including voter registration and absentee ballots - as well as the importance of voting in local, state, and national elections.”
And while many of these students may not be interested in American politics, there are signs that some might be more encouraged to vote against our current President, Donald Trump (R-New York). This comes after his administration had restricted travel into the United States from several nations that have predominantly Muslim populations.
Jeffrey Cox, the Director of International Student Services, personally finds the “Muslim bans,” as they are popularly referred to, were entirely un-American and contrary to America’s founding principles.
“It increased the levels of Islamophobia among some Americans,” Cox explains, “and it energized a great many more Americans to voice their opposition to such a terrible policy. Thankfully, various challenges in the courts ultimately forced Trump to remove several of the restrictions, but the underlying rationale for the ban is fundamentally flawed.”
Forty-Five RIT students, along with researcher Ahmed Hadar, were negatively impacted by the initial travel bans Trump enacted in 2017. Among the negatively-impacted students is graduate research assistant Aslan Dehghani, who came to the Rochester campus from Iran on a single-entry visa and is thus unable to fly back home to visit his family while he pursues his Ph.D. in Microsystems Engineering.
“Most Iranian Ph.D. students receive a single-entrance visa to the U.S. meaning that if we travel out of the US during our Ph.D.,” Dehghani explains, “we’ll have to apply for a new visa. The process is so risky that most of us decide to stay in the U.S. for 4-5 years without going back home to visit or even going to Canada. However, when I decided to pursue my education in the U.S., my plan was to have my family visiting me here, which is not possible anymore because of the travel ban. Let me ask you this; Is there anything worth not seeing your beloved ones and family for 5 years? I still ask myself this question every day. I haven’t seen my family for 4.5 years. “
But why did the Trump Administration restrict entry into the States from these predominantly Muslim nations? Ryan Heister, a Bioinformatics major currently serving as the Communication Director for RIT College Republicans, believes that they were imposed to help prevent terrorist attacks from occurring on a frequent basis.
“European nations with weak borders see regular terrorist attacks and Trump is trying to make sure that doesn’t happen here,” Heister explained. “I’m not sure it was the correct course of action though as many students and immigrants from those countries had a difficult time meeting with friends and family in their homelands. The government should instead work on extensive background checks to make sure that no one we let in is an extremist.”
“The argument that it was done for our safety is a false narrative as the safety elements of our immigration vetting system,” Jeffrey Cox explains, “are quite good and can certainly be improved without having to implement a travel ban. In addition, as those rare instances when the U.S. has suffered a terrorist attack on our soil have shown, people who are intent on doing us harm can come from any country.”
Trump will undoubtedly be the Republican nominee for President as he actively seeks his second term in office, he will first have to meet face-to-face with the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. Nevertheless, individuals who plan on voting must register prior to the election on November 3, or April 28 for those who also plan on voting in the New York State Primaries.
“Students can keep their eyes open for us at large campus events,” Trubridy explains, “where they will be able to register to vote, change party affiliation, and learn about the various methods for casting their vote.”
The Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement encourages students to become registered voters via the online web app TurboVote. The app can also be used to request absentee ballots for those who have already registered back home and cannot return to vote in-person.