Columbia keeps scholarship plan to attract Syrians

NEW YORK — Columbia University is moving ahead with a scholarship program for Syrian college students displaced by civil war, despite concerns that some students it accepts will be blocked from attending by President Donald Trump’s travel restrictions.

The program, which has already allowed a handful of students into the university, recently announced it was seeking a second round of new applications from Syrian students.

Around 230 have applied, with the enrollment period still open. That’s comparable to 275 applicants the previous year.

Unless U.S. policy changes , they would face a challenge getting into the country. Restrictions put in place by the Trump administration bar Syrian nationals from getting any visas, including student visas, with only limited possibility for case-by-case exceptions.

College administrators are holding out hope the U.S. Supreme Court will loosen or strike down those restrictions. The justices are scheduled to hear arguments on legal challenges to the rules this month, with the timing of a ruling uncertain.

In the interim, “what we concluded was, we go forward,” said Bruce Usher, a professor at Columbia Business School who worked on creating the scholarship program. “What we do is educate people. If we find that certain applicants are unable to attend … hopefully they’ll eventually be able to get a visa.”

The latest version of the travel ban affects seven countries — Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen — with certain Venezuelan government officials. Chad had been on the list but was removed recently.

Citizens of those countries, except Venezuela, are generally barred from getting visas that would allow them to come here permanently as immigrants.

Those rules were not in place when Columbia created the program in 2016.