must obtain<\/a> a travel signature from the Office of International Services, which is valid for one year, in order to leave the country. Lazaro said this can make traveling with a student visa frustrating.<\/p>\n\u201cYou have to pick a date and get your visa signed every year,\u201d Lazaro said. \u201cIf you leave the country without them signing it, it\u2019s a whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite some worries, Lazaro still decided to travel to the Dominican Republic with her family during Thanksgiving break and plans to go back to her home in Spain for winter break.<\/p>\n
\u201cChristmas break is too long [to not go home],\u201d Lazaro said. \u201cI want to go home more than however bad those 15 minutes in front of the police officer are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other students are less concerned about the restrictions. Victoria Cane, a junior communications major from Buenos Aires, Argentina, said she came to Pitt as an international student but has since obtained her green card during the summer of 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cane said she is not worried about traveling now that she holds permanent residency.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m doing everything that I have to. I\u2019m respecting all the rules, so I don\u2019t think there should be any problem,\u201d Cane said.<\/p>\n
As a green card holder, Cane said her status grants her more freedom now, but she was unable to travel while waiting for approval.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first year [at Pitt], I couldn\u2019t go back home,\u201d Cane said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t go back home the first winter. I couldn\u2019t go back home the first summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that her travels are unrestricted, Cane said she does not always feel the need to go home for Thanksgiving or spring break due to high travel costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not really worth it,\u201d Cane said. \u201cThe trips are super expensive from here to Latin America, and I was already going to go [on] Dec. 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the longer upcoming winter break, however, Cane said she wouldn\u2019t consider being anywhere but at home with her family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel that the holidays are a huge thing back home,\u201d Cane said. \u201cIt\u2019s the only time that my dad can take time off work [and] my mom. My brothers don\u2019t have school. It\u2019s the only time where we can all meet up.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Stonesifer, there are University resources available for international or other students who are staying on campus during breaks. Business, Housing, and Auxiliary Services provided a free Thanksgiving meal to Pitt students on Nov. 26.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the winter ahead, on-campus student housing is available for access during winter break, provided that students applied by a deadline of Nov. 21. Pitt\u2019s Winter Express \u2014 a free pop-up grocery store to assist students on campus during break \u2014 will be held in the William Pitt Union on Dec. 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although wary of new travel restrictions, some international students remain committed to going home for the holidays. Some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[23119,1868,73,75,74,4491,28734],"class_list":["post-49977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-break","tag-international-students","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-travel","tag-travel-restrictions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}