The Brief

During the summer of 1999, when I was just 15, I moved with my family to Spain. I had never visited Europe before and I had only traveled outside the United States for trips to Mexico.

What took place over the year I spent living in the country’s capital of Madrid and traveling that country was life-altering. Not only did it leave an ever-lasting impression on how I viewed the world and culture, but my understanding of food and cooking also evolved drastically in ways I think I’m still grasping.

One of the first places that we visited in our new home after taking an overnight train from Paris (another first for me) was the legendary restaurant Casa Labra, which first opened its doors in 1860 (some 20 years before my hometown of Whittier would be incorporated) and was the site of the Spanish Socialist Party formation in 1879. My sleep-deprived teenage self wasn’t concerned with the history around me and instead sought sustenance and comfort in potato croquettes.

The small tubular-shaped fried fritters with slightly sweet-tasting outside batter and warm starchy inside arrived two to a plate.

Consumed with a Coke, it remains one of my life's simpler yet most satisfying dining experiences.

Coming full circle

I've noticed that simplicity in a new crop of restaurants and pop-ups that have begun to spring up around Los Angeles, experimenting with the same Spanish and Portuguese flavors that were a rite of passage for me.

The majority of the chefs whom I spoke to for this article were all around my age, all in our 40s, so I couldn’t help but wonder if we had all reached a similar conjecture in our life cycle, where we’d spent our 20-30s trying the most exotic foods we could get our hands out and are now coming full circle, seeking simple and well-executed dishes.

Some might view this as plain, almost even dull. But as I’ve had time to sit with the idea over the past 25+ years, it’s struck me as nearly anything but.

The Serrano Experience (pop up)

When Jorge Serrano, owner of the Spanish food pop-up concept The Serrano Experience, moved to Florida at the age of 8 from his native Spain, its food was already in his blood.

Serrano grew up in Madrid. His father is from Galicia, just above the Portuguese border to the north, and his mother is from Granada, in the South. Both parents raised Serrano with a strong passion for food early on, often dining out and cooking at home as a family.

Serrano went to culinary school for a year but quickly realized the classroom wasn’t for him, but the food was. He started working at Nobu Malibu, tirelessly learning the ropes, eventually moving back to Europe to work at different Nobu properties, then later working for Spanish Chef Dani Garcia in the city Marbella in the south of Spain and David Muñoz at Street XO.

Yet despite all that culinary world-building Serrano had under his belt, he hadn’t had an opportunity to cook his version of Spanish food professionally. He decided to dive in after moving to Los Angeles to be closer to his two sons in Santa Barbara.

I spoke with Serrano at one of his recent pop-ups, this one at the Santa Monica wine bar Esters. The lively mood of the place was buzzing with diners, which matched Serrano’s panache when it came to his dishes. “It all started with a leg of ham,” Serrano said that night, delving into the story of his start in L.A. That leg of ham, pata negra, is the highest grade of Spanish cured ham. (The name refers to the animal's hoof.)

Serrano can often be found standing behind the bar during one of his pop-ups, with his long carving knife expertly slicing up perfectly symmetric squares of the cured meat, much to the delight of the hungry crowds who were there that night. Watching him move the blade back and forth while the sounds of the solo Spanish guitarist playing from the sidewalk, it was almost as if Serrano was conducting his symphony.

Gambas al ajillo, The Serrano Experience

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Courtesy of The Serrano Experience

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After several runs of popping up at Alma’s, a cider bar in East Hollywood, where he only served exquisite cuts of that leg of ham and nothing else, owner Lee Briante, who loved this cured meats concept so much, asked Serrano what else he could cook up for the hungry crowd that was showing up each night.

Next followed were dishes such as tortilla de patata, croquetas, gambas al ajillo, a dish made with head-on prawns bathed in a sauce made of garlic and olive oil. The menu is curated to what Serrano feels like that week, what’s fresh at the market, and his location. “We grew into more dishes, paellas, and pulpos; depending on different pop-up locations, we can do different dishes. So now I just keep playing around every week. I try to do a new dish,” Serrano explains. Diners usually order two to three items and enjoy them with a glass of wine.

That menu that evening at Ester’s featured this new a variety of tapas consisting of his Cadiz crudo, made with bluefin tuna belly, Japanese rice wine vinegar, nori, crispy shallots, and an arbequina extra virgin olive oil from Spain which makes for an onslaught of clean and exquisite flavors and textures as the fattiness of tunas pairs with the saltiness of the nori.

Another standout dish was Serrano’s pulpo Galleo, a Galician-style dish made with tender octopus over a bed of softly crushed potatoes sprinkled with smoked pimento that melts in your mouth.

Diners can finish their meal with a slice of burnt Basque cheesecake. Serrano’s version makes excellent strides to distinguish itself, upping the custard factor of the cake’s incredibly soft and creamy texture. His secret? Serrano takes things a step further, adding fio de ovos, threads of egg yolks boiled in sugar syrup, making them soft, almost noodle-like, an exquisite accompaniment to the richness of the cheesecake.

It looks burnt. But that's the magic of the Basque Cheesecake from The Serrano Experience: The inside is ethereal.

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Courtesy of The Serrano Experience

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For Serrano, the similarities between Spain and California in climate translate well for food and wine from an approachable and affordable perspective. “I'm very excited to do this kind of food. "I've worked at Michelin-rated restaurants my whole life as a chef, and I respect it, but I just want easy food from a cooking perspective that people enjoy and can afford," he said.

"It's like a happy medium for everyone. The future of food is going more casual, more rustic kinds of plates.”

Baserriko Peppers (pop up)

Gill Gonzalez of Baserriko Peppers, a Spanish Basque pop-up, started cooking Basque food because he couldn’t find it in Los Angeles. The Basque country is an autonomous region of Spain and France, known for influences from both cultures. Gonzalez had grown Basque peppers in his backyard in Walnut Park, near South Gate. His varietals included choricero (often used as the main spice component found in Basque-style chorizo) to piparas, the small yellow peppers usually found in tapas across Spain.

From his cultivation of these rare and exotic peppers, Gonzalez began cooking as a respite from his work as an engineer.

Bocadillo de Txuleton, tistorra caserra, y melted garrotxa — steak, sausage and melted goat cheese, heading for a plate.

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Courtesy of Baserriko Peppers

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The pepper is central to Gonzalez's pop-up concept, which is interesting given that he’s cooking a cuisine not generally known for containing a lot of heat. Hence, the name of his operation, Beserriko Peppers.

The Basque dishes that Gonzalez serves at his pop-up — pintxos and tapas, tortillas, and paella are excellent primer for folks with limited Spanish food exposure. However, the dish he's most proud of is his chistora, a cured sausage that he says isn’t found anywhere else in Los Angeles. It is known for its meaty and juicy flavor with just a hit of sweet, a dish often fried and served cut up into pieces as pintxo or in a bocadillo, a small sandwich made with Spanish bread and best enjoyed with a beer or cider. Gonzalez describes his dishes as “nothing elaborate, nothing too fancy. Just simple stuff you can enjoy around the table".

The paella at Otoño, now on the menu after so many requests for it.

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Courtesy of Otoño

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Otoño (Highland Park)

Chef Teresa Montano, the owner of Otoño, which opened in 2018 in Highland Park, fell in love with Spanish cooking after working for the Border Grill group, at Ciudad in downtown Los Angeles, known for its pan-Latin cuisine. Montano worked as a line cook a few nights a week, serving Spanish dishes such as paella and tapas.

For Montano, this marked a tipping point of sorts. “I just got turned on by those flavors, and I started traveling to Spain, and that was it,” she said.

Montano recalls gravitating to paella early on. Growing up in New Mexico, Montano’s mother made her version of Spanish rice, with tomato, garlic, onion, and other assorted spices. Immediately she saw the parallels between the dish she grew up eating at home and the yellow saffron rice featured in paella.

After being bit by the Spanish food bug, Montano remained transfixed by the straightforward cooking in her travels to Spain. “As I explored more, especially in Barcelona, it was the simple seafood, like razor clams, the fried croquetas, and things like that just kept piquing my interest,” Montano said.

Montano says the straightforward style of Spanish cooking forces you to emphasize the quality of the product: “If you just have three ingredients on the plate, they better be the best ingredients you can find.”

Let the flavors shine

She recalls attending a food talk featuring the late Los Angeles food critic Jonathan Gold, and asked him why there wasn’t more Spanish food in Los Angeles. She remembers Gold saying that was because Spanish food was plain. “I was like, 'What are you talking about?' I didn't want to argue with him, but that was his answer. And it could come off as plain, but I think just having those great ingredients and letting them shine is beautiful.”

Montano made it her mission to unlock the Spanish flavors she had experienced during her travels. Before opening Otoño, she had opened another restaurant in Pasadena called Ración. The menu at Ración had more of a fine-dining emphasis, with many seafood-inspired dishes that took influence from Spain's Basque and Catalan regions.

Paella, please!

Montano recalls that while she and her staff were trying to execute a higher-concept menu, customers often asked for paella. After her time at Ración ended in the summer of 2016, she traveled back to Spain to Valencia, the birthplace of paella in the south of Spain. What she discovered when it came to the dish was that a paella, in its natural environment, was more of a rustic dish, that field workers would eat with whatever they had on hand.

Armed with that knowledge cultivated in Spain, Montano wants her menu to remain approachable regarding the price point and execution of each dish. “I want to offer more raciones—more of the larger plates. And so our menu is going to trim down and become tighter on the tapas end.”

Serving dishes at good value remains an important principle for Montano, but it also serves comforting food. She describes the current menu at Otono as “about that sharing, and it's the conviviality.”

While in Valencia, she visited the neighborhood known as El Carmen. It’s an area known for its older architecture, with cathedrals built 500 years ago along cobblestone streets juxtaposed with large street art style murals.

“It's so stunning that they live parallel, and that was what I wanted to do here with the food,” she said. “It's classic and modern, and they're together on the same menu or sometimes on the same plate.

Bar Moruno in Silver Lake

Chris Feldmeier, the owner and chef of Bar Moruno in Silver Lake, wanted to fill a void for a cooking style he loved. That specific style of cuisine was a southern Spain style of cooking that he refers to as “Andalusian style cooking.” It’s food originating from an area most famously known for being conquered by the Moors in 700 A.D. It’s a style of cooking that takes heavily from Middle Eastern influences using spices — lots of turmeric, lots of coriander, cumin but using a lot of European techniques in cooking those things.”

The Tinned Fish plate at Bar Moruno

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Ann Fishbein

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Courtesy of Bar Murano

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Using the Andalusian concept as his North Star, Feldmeier knew he didn’t want his menu to consist solely of tapas. “We consciously wanted to expose more of what Spain has to offer than the usual, I don't know, a run-of-the-mill Spanish restaurant.”

At Bar Moruno, chef Feldmeier wants to expose his diners to new things. Tin fish is a central focus on the menu at Bar Moruno, which is found all over Spain and Portugal. (Pro tip: if traveling to either of these places, it makes excellent souvenirs to bring home.) Usually consisting of fish like sardines, mackerel, oysters, and mussels, all preserved in olive oil or different sauces.

When describing the menu, Feldmeier explains, “I advise people to come in, and I design the menu first and foremost so you can eat any way you'd like. It's supposed to show the flexibility of Spain and the entire region's food. And make it approachable for everybody in a different way.”

Barra Santos (Cypress Park)

When Mike Santos and Melissa Lopez first came up with the idea to open a Portuguese restaurant, they knew they didn’t want it to feel like L.A. Entering the small restaurant space in Cypress Park, with its blue and white tile bar and carved brick, with the small group of diners casually drinking glasses of wine and nibbling on Alorena olives that has been marinated with coriander and orange, it does manage to make you feel like you’ve been whisked away to another place.

The salt cod fritters at Barra Santos.

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Courtesy of Barra Santos

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Santos and his head chef, Melissa Lopez, wanted the food to showcase specific simple flavors representative of Portuguese cooking, an underrepresented cuisine in Los Angeles.

Seafood is a significant focus of the menu at Barra Santos, featuring standouts such as salt cod fritters that are ultra-savory and meaty.

Eating with a fork or just your hand after squeezing a bit of lemon juice over them is almost a meditative experience, allowing you to dial directly into the flavors. With each bite, all the other noise of your day seems to fall away.

“Specifically to Portuguese food, it's very low-key flavor. It's very flavorful, but you must source great ingredients and try not to do much with them. The bacalao (cod), we soak them for three days. We make caramelized onions. It takes three to four hours to get them nice and sweet. And that's it. I think it speaks for itself in the dish,” Lopez says.

When speaking to Santos, who was born in Portugal, about the reasoning behind the simple cooking style in Portuguese cooking, “It came out of necessity and using what you had. You couldn't access many gourmet products, so you just kept things simple.”

Santos' comments remind me of how many of us were cooking and eating based on what we had because of the pandemic.

Such staples, good bread, and olive oil felt essential in our kitchen; therefore, it makes sense why we, as diners, are increasingly seeking similar dining experiences when going out.

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Automated speed cameras have arrived in Long Beach, and they’re scheduled to begin issuing tickets soon.

The cameras are part of a state-authorized pilot program to see if writing automated speeding tickets can make roads safer.

A speed limit sign is posted as crews install new speed cameras on Artesia Boulevard in North Long Beach on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026.

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Long Beach Post

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Long Beach has seen a surge of deadly crashes in recent years and was picked as a pilot city after the mayor and city officials lobbied for the chance to install cameras.

When they start

Crews began installing the speed cameras this week. Nearby signs will warn drivers, said Joshua Hickman, director of Public Works. The cameras will start issuing warnings for 60 days before citations start.

The warning period is expected to start in October; then citations would start going out in December, Hickman said.

How they work

The cameras capture only the rear license plates of drivers speeding 11 mph or more over the posted speed limit. Based on that license plate information, a citation will be issued to the address where the car is registered.

License plate data is kept within the Public Works Department and not shared with any law enforcement agencies, including Long Beach police, Hickman said.

Where they are

Half of the cameras are on streets where deadly or severe crashes have occurred most often. The other half are going in school zones or in areas where street racing is a problem.

You can find an interactive map of the speed camera locations here.

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City of Long Beach

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How much is a citation

Citations range from $50 to 500 based on speed.

If a driver does not receive any warnings during the 60-day warning period, then the first speeding offense will result in a warning. After that, they will get a citation with a fine.

Payment is due within 30 days, but payment plans and diversion programs are available.

You can find more info on those here.

How will the money be spent?

The city anticipates half of the speeding ticket revenue, roughly $2.5 million, will cover the costs of running the camera program.

The other half will be spent on traffic-calming measures in neighborhoods where traffic engineers determine they’re needed most. The state law authorizing the pilot program says the money can’t be spent on anything else.

Safety measures could include crosswalks, no-turn-on-red signs and speed humps. The city has received an influx of requests from residents asking for some sort of safety measure in their neighborhood since the start of the year.

Traffic deaths

Residents have said they’re fed up with dangerous streets, and the city is trying to respond.

Last year, Long Beach recorded its deadliest year on the roadways in more than a decade – 53 fatal traffic collisions.

Scott Musquiz mounts new speed cameras onto a light pole on Artesia Boulevard in North Long Beach on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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Earlier this year, Long Beach City Council directed the Public Works Department to hire third-party contractors to speed up their ability to install quick-build safety measures.

But traffic deaths this year have kept up the pace. At this time last year, the city had tallied 35 traffic deaths. As of Friday, this year’s total is at 33.

State pilot

Long Beach is able to install speed cameras thanks to a 2023 state bill that approved a five-year pilot for Long Beach as well as six other cities.

The city was allowed to install speed cameras immediately after the bill passed and had until Jan. 1, 2027, to begin the pilot.

Street safety advocates have criticized Long Beach for its delayed rollout compared to other cities.

Success in other cities

San Francisco installed 33 speed cameras last October and reported a 72% reduction in speeding after six months of citations.

Brian Woodward, left, gets assistance as he prepares a speed camera to be mounted as crews install new cameras on Artesia Boulevard in North Long Beach on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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In Oakland, 18 speed camera locations saw a 70% drop in speeding drivers, on average.

Los Angeles and Glendale have yet to deploy their speed cameras.

Potential expansion to PCH

A state bill currently on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk would allow Long Beach to install two more speed cameras on Pacific Coast Highway.

If signed, the cameras could be installed as soon as Jan. 1 and would follow the same rules as the other cameras.

The aftermath of a fatal high-speed crash at Anaheim Street and Pacific Coast Highway on March 23, 2020.

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Long Beach Post

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PCH is a state route, meaning it was not included in the state pilot program because it’s not controlled by the city of Long Beach.

State Sen. Lena Gonzalez, who authored the bill, said PCH accounts for about one-fifth of the city’s traffic deaths despite covering less than 1% of the city’s roadways.

The 78th Emmy Awards air Monday night, hosted by Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay.

The Television Academy already kicked things off earlier this month: what was once the Creative Arts Emmys was expanded and rebranded into a two-night ceremony highlighting casting, guest actors, game shows, documentaries, behind-the-scenes craftspeople and more. Rob Reiner was posthumously awarded his third Emmy for a guest appearance on The Bear. Hargitay, Monday night's host, won two awards for her documentary My Mom Jayne. 

Monday's ceremony will include 19 awards, including those for top comedy series, top drama series and best actor and actress in each.

Here's what to know to watch the ceremony.

When are the Emmy Awards this year?

The show will be live Monday night on NBC and Peacock starting at 8 p.m. ET, 5 p.m. PT. A pre-show and live coverage will air on E! starting at 5 p.m. ET, 2 p.m. PT.

Who is nominated this year?

Familiar titles like Hacks, Abbott Elementary and The Bear are all nominated for top comedy series alongside newcomers Widow's Bay and Margo's Got Money Troubles. On the drama side, last year's winner The Pitt is facing off against Pluribus, Slow Horses, The Diplomat and more.

A whole swath of actors on The Pitt got their first nominations this year, as did Dale Dickey and Kate O'Flynn for Widow's Bay. You can find the nominees here, along with hopes from NPR critics here.

What else can I expect? 

The Television Academy has announced that Noah Kahan will perform "Bridge Over Troubled Water" as part of the In Memoriam segment. Presenters will include Alan Cumming, Sally Field, Jon Hamm, Marcello Hernández, Niecy Nash-Betts, Keke Palmer, Amy Poehler, Florence Pugh, Rachel Sennott and Zendaya.
Copyright 2026 NPR

In less than two years, the Olympics and Paralympics will take over Los Angeles for the summer of 2028, temporarily transforming the city and the region around it.

Hosting the world’s largest sporting event will mean commandeering a fleet of nearly 2,000 public buses, reserving stretches of freeway lanes just for Olympics traffic flow, deploying thousands of law enforcement officers across venues, taking over UCLA and USC to make way for athletes and journalists, and flooding Southern California with millions of fans.

What will everyday Angelenos get out of all this? That depends. And it’s the question LAist is dedicated to answering every Monday as we spotlight our ongoing reporting on the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Los Angeles residents have more at stake than just inconvenience, ticket prices and traffic. The city of L.A. is the financial backstop for the Olympics, meaning taxpayers will pick up the tab if LA28, the private organization planning the Games, runs a deficit.

That makes every plan for the execution of the 2028 Games hugely important for the city — from how L.A. pens agreements with LA28 on reimbursement for city services to whether or not the federal government will pay for the enormous cost of policing the mega-event.

L.A. has hosted the Olympics before — first in 1932 and again in 1984. Both times the Games turned a profit — a rarity for a global event that has gained a reputation over the decades for leaving cities with debt and empty stadiums.

Local officials say they’re confident L.A. can pull off a third Olympic Games (and its first-ever Paralympics), pointing out that hosting will not require building any new sports venues.

Still, there’s plenty to watch, including how temporary construction will turn existing venues into Olympic competition sites, where billions in contracts for things like cleaning and construction will go and whether that money will stay local, and how the expansion of the L.A. Convention Center could affect its role as an Olympic venue.

And there are the ways the Olympics and Paralympics could influence the lives of L.A.’s most vulnerable. Researchers estimate that close to 6,000 unhoused people live within a mile of Olympic venues in L.A. County, and could be removed due to security requirements tied to the Games. Others worry about the enhanced police presence that is guaranteed to accompany Olympic and Paralympic competitions, and what the Trump administration’s involvement in planning could mean for the city.

We’ll be following all this and more. Every Monday, you can listen to the latest on how Los Angeles is preparing for the 2028 Olympics on The L.A. Report and on our homepage.

The Department of Homeland Security says they have put some colleges and universities “on notice” that they could be in violation of federal rules that dictate work opportunities for international students.

The directive has left some of those students feeling worried, as their schools pause opportunities to work in the United States.

And experts warn that it could have adverse effects on U.S. industry and global growth.

What does DHS say?

In late August, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, part of the Department of Homeland Security, issued a statement stating that they have “observed a rise" in violations related to Curricular Practical Training.

CPT is paid or unpaid work that students do as part of their degree program, like an internship. The administration says regulatory requirements permit CPT only where the training is “an integral part of an established curriculum.”

In a written statement, an unnamed DHS spokesperson told LAist, “Nothing about these regulations has changed. However, schools and employers should consider themselves on notice: under President Trump, abuse of this generous system will no longer be tolerated.”

LAist reached out to DHS for the percentage increase in CPT violations and specifically asked for data related to Southern California schools. We have not received an answer.

How have local universities responded?

Following the memo from the department, several universities including the University of Southern California, UCLA and UC Berkeley have paused or required additional information to determine if work experience is a requirement for a particular degree program.

In a written statement to LAist, a spokesperson for the UCLA Dashew Center said, “UCLA has paused certain Curricular Practical Training authorizations while the university reviews recent federal guidance and determines next steps. UCLA is communicating directly with students who have affected CPT applications and remains committed to supporting our international students as we navigate these changes.”

Why it matters

For students, this is causing uncertainty.

“It came as a surprise to all the international students. We were not aware of it and there is a lot of tension among the international students,” said Nitesh, a student from India at USC. He asked that we only use his first name for fear of repercussions from speaking to the media.

Those who applied for CPT authorizations after Aug. 23 at USC now are in limbo waiting to see if their applications will be approved.

 ”It is a real industry exposure to us when it comes to learning,” Nithesh said about the CPT component. “We definitely get lots of learnings and value from classes and by doing projects, but CPT is a way for us to understand what happens in the industry and keep us up to date.”

Nitesh, who took out an $85,000 loan to come to the U.S. for his degree program, said he would have reconsidered coming here had he known about these regulations ahead of time.

 ”Because there is a lot happening and nobody has clarity, so there is a lot of ambiguity, and we are just waiting for the right information to come in,” he said.

International enrollment impact

The memo is the latest in a string of directives targeting international students. Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced new rules limiting how long international students can remain in the country, as opposed to remaining in the U.S. for as long as it takes to complete their degree program.

Santa Monica College has seen a drastic drop in international student enrollments: In fall 2016, the community college had more than 3,500 international students enrolled; that number has dropped to less than 1,600 this year.

Grace Smith, a spokesperson for Santa Monica College said, “In recent years, several interconnected federal restrictions continue to exert pressure on international enrollment and are likely to impact future enrollment cycles.”

Declining international student enrollment has a “significant impact on the college’s fiscal outlook,” Smith said as international student enrollment accounts for about 8% of the college’s unrestricted revenue.

Caltech’s president Ray Jayawardhana told LAist’s AirTalk program that he came to the U.S. as an international student from Sri Lanka.

“ Growing up in Sri Lanka, I thought of universities like Caltech in the United States as beacons on a hill,” he said. “They really were beckoning the best and the brightest from around the world, and I think it behooves us to preserve that attraction, preserve that draw, so that this country and the world at large benefits from students, from researchers, from scholars.”

While the uncertainties are “discouraging,” Jayawardhana said, Caltech is seeing “continued interest that's as strong as ever.”

Hits to the U.S. economy

Rachel Banks,  senior director for public policy and legislative strategy at NAFSA: Association of International Educators, said the current climate for international students is the “most difficult and most challenging” it has been since World War II.

“Having gone through the first [Trump administration], there were certain expectations of what we might see coming,” she said. “What I think was unexpected was the severity and degree to which we saw the Trump administration make moves specifically with respect to international students.”

Banks says her organization projects that the loss of around 111,000 international student enrollments could cost the U.S. economy $3.4 billion and nearly 4,000 jobs. California’s economy could see a hit of about $500 million because of declining enrollment.

The volume of visa revocations, particularly for students involved in campus protests for Palestinian rights, was “unprecedented,” she said. The State Department’s move to pause on interviews for visa applications and renewals was also something that hadn’t happened at this scale before, Banks said. And the new visa limits for international students, she said, is “incredibly disruptive” and takes the decision making away from students and universities.

The new memo about CPT authorizations adds to the uncertainty, she said.

Following World War II, the government put a lot of emphasis into fostering and developing our higher education system, Banks said, which allowed universities “to attract the best and brightest talent and that has led to the numerous innovations and achievements that we've been able to see come out of the United States.”

That talent, she said, will now look to go to other countries more favorable to international students.