Genesis Garcia had just finished volunteering at a house in Mexico City that serves refugees — in preparation for a research project on Central American migrants — when the University of California’s study abroad office called to tell her she needed to make a quick decision: return to the United States immediately or risk not being able to get back into the country again.

The UC Berkeley sociology student was about to get a lesson in just how unpredictable it is to study abroad in the Trump era.

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California Master Beekeeper Program announces first ‘Master Beekeeper’ The Trump administration was days away from rescinding the program known as DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allowed undocumented young people like Garcia to live, work, study and travel without fear of deportation. Fearful she could be trapped abroad, Garcia halted her research plans, packed her bags and flew home the next day.

“I’m still processing,” Garcia, who came to the U.S. from Guatemala at age 10, said from Los Angeles, where she’ll finish the research project she’d planned to conduct in Mexico through November.

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Between last week’s DACA announcement, a spate of terror attacks in places such as Barcelona and Paris, and travel bans that have restricted who can come to the U.S., universities and students are coping with topsy-turvy political and international turmoil that has forced school officials to rethink not only where they send students abroad and how they keep them safe, but how they welcome foreigners to their campuses at home.

“It’s a new world and some dark days for us,” said Susan Popko, Santa Clara University’s associate provost for international programs.

Schools are thinking more about global risk management, in industry parlance, and, in places like Turkey, suspending study abroad programs that seem too risky. They’re advising students with DACA status not to leave the country and counseling incoming students on how to talk to immigration officials.

After President Donald Trump said he wanted to ban people from certain countries from traveling to the United States, Santa Clara University began fielding questions about whether it was safe to come to the Silicon Valley suburb.

“The fact that’s even a question, it’s heartbreaking,” Popko said.

Two UC Berkeley students were killed in terror attacks in France and Bangladesh while studying or working as an intern last summer. When attacks that took the life of a Cal State Long Beach student rocked Paris in 2015, San Jose State officials spent a panicked night trying to track down a student who’d decided to go off the grid temporarily.

The experience “opened our eyes,” said Ruth Huard, dean of the College of International and Extended Studies. “Not knowing where one of your students is at any moment is very disconcerting.”

Now, Popko’s staff reassures nervous families of international students that they are welcome in Santa Clara and her staff is setting up forums for domestic students and faculty to show them support, particularly students from Muslim countries affected by the ban.

Huard’s team instituted a multi-pronged approach for reaching students and made sure staffers have the contact information they need.

“The anti-globalization trend is really significant,” Popko said. “I think we’re all very much in the throes of this.”

While schools such as Stanford say the number of students interested in studying abroad continues to grow, and the temptation of working in Silicon Valley remains a strong draw for international students looking to come to the U.S., officials acknowledge there is real fear, particularly among parents.

“I know the parents are much more concerned about their sons or daughters traveling overseas than was the case even five years ago,” said Ramón Saldívar, director of Stanford’s Overseas Studies Program. “They’re looking for assurances.”

Where Popko used to worry about swine flu, now she thinks about what to do with students in places like Japan, if North Korea launches a missile toward the United States and Trump retaliates.

Of course, as long as study abroad programs have existed, there have been unforeseen crises to address. When the nuclear reactor in Fukushima melted in 2011, Popko, then at Occidental College, brought students studying there home at Japan’s request.

But there seem to be more fires, in all senses of the word, these days.

Stanford, for instance, was forced to suspend a popular study abroad program in Turkey several years ago after just one year because of unrest in the region. Santa Clara suspended a program in Jordan, leaving students who want to study in the Middle East with one option: Morocco.

“We have to think differently about what it means to study abroad,” Huard said.

At San Jose State, that means looking for ways to bring some of the cultural exchanges that happen abroad to undocumented students who now have to stay in the U.S. Over winter break, the school will take students to New Orleans to learn about how European and African influences shaped the city. In the spring, the school will take students to the Grand Canyon to meet members of the Navajo Nation.

“We have to think differently about what it means to study abroad.” — Ruth Huard, San Jose State University dean of the College of International and Extended Studies

Stanford is considering something similar.

After a student from India who was scheduled to study at San Jose State last year had an issue entering the country at San Francisco International Airport, the school started preparing students to talk to immigration officials about their visa status and purpose for entering the country.

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Myla Edmond, a spokeswoman for UC’s study abroad program, said her office is also seeing more inbound students experience visa delays or denials, and they’re adding a staff member to their emergency response team.

But, for study abroad program officials, the challenges just reinforce the importance of study abroad programs.

The whole point is to open students to new ideas and people and cultures, Popko said. “That’s the whole reason for our existence.”

Saldívar agrees.

“Certainly, the international situation is very complicated and something we need to look at very carefully and very closely all of the time now,” he said. “But at the same time, there are wonderful opportunities that really create transformative possibilities for students. It’s going to take a lot to make us back away from that.”