POSTED BY MARTIN KICH

Writing for the NBC News website, Phil Hessel reports on the responses of universities to President Trump’s executive order prohibiting those from certain Muslim countries from entering the U.S.:

“At a practical level, we are advising community members and visiting scholars

from the designated countries to suspend plans for international travel,” Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger said in a statement released Sunday, adding that they did not know of any Columbia students, faculty or staff who had been affected.

“We join with many peers in decrying this action as discriminatory, damaging to America’s leadership in higher education, and contrary to our nation’s core values and founding principles,” he added.

Stanford’s Bechtel International Center listed in a Facebook post Friday the seven countries that could be affected and said “we recommend that nationals of these countries do not travel.”

A Stanford PhD student flying into New York late Friday night from Sudan was detained for around five hours after Trump signed the order, university spokesperson Lisa Lapin said. The student, who is from Sudan but is a longtime legal U.S. resident with a green card, was released at 4:30  a.m.

“We have strongly advised students and scholars who might be affected and who have travel plans in the coming days to defer travel outside of the United States until there is some clarity and legal analysis of the situation or, if they must travel, to seek legal counsel before they do,” Princeton University said in an email.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in a statement to students Saturday that the order “is already having an impact on members of our community.”

“While we are very troubled by this situation, our first concern is for those of our international students and scholars who are directly affected. We are working closely with them to offer every support we can,” the letter from Provost Martin A. Schmidt, Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart, and Vice President for Research Maria T. Zuber said.

The University of Notre Dame also urged the president to rescind the order. The executive order “will demean our nation, whose true greatness has been its guiding ideals of fairness, welcome to immigrants, compassion for refugees, respect for religious faith and the courageous refusal to compromise its principles in the face of threats,” the university said in a statement released  Sunday. . . .

Statistics maintained by the Department of Homeland Security indicate about 17,000 students from the seven designated countries were allowed into the U.S. for the 2015­2016 school year, The Associated Press  reported. . . .

The University of Michigan said in a statement that it was committed to supporting international and undocumented students.

“We are working to understand the implications on our community of the ‘extreme vetting’ executive order blocking immigration from certain countries,” the university said.

Hessel’s complete article is available at: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/some-universities-urge-students-use-caution-delay-travel-after-trump-n713636?cid=eml_pol_20170129.