When Razieh got married and moved to the U.S. from Iran in 2011, she didn’t think a planned trip home to visit family would become a source of tension and uncertainty. Then President Donald Trump was elected and initiated an effort to institute a ban on travel from a group of countries that included her native Iran.

“We canceled the whole trip,” said Razieh, a 29-year-old permanent U.S. resident who is pursuing a master’s degree in architecture at Portland State University. (She asked that the 91��Ƶ use only her first name.) “It is a stressful situation.”

As the fight over the Trump administration’s effort to restrict travel from certain countries takes place in courtrooms across the country, some business professionals are beginning to question whether their companies’ sources for future architects and engineers will become limited.

“We have the same concerns about the impact on the ability to hire future engineers,” Kittelson & Associates Chief Financial Officer Larry Van Dyke said. “At this point we haven’t seen much impact in the talent pool we are hiring from. We are concerned about future.”

Some people in the architecture industry are already beginning to be affected by the proposed restrictions.

“We have to do a lot more documentation than in the past for foreign candidates,” said Ruth Lloyd, director of human resources at Ankrom Moisan Architects. “Those trying to come from the banned countries on H-1B visas have been denied.”

For Ankrom Moisan, the impact on recruitment has also been financial, Lloyd said.

“It is just costly on attorneys’ fees,” she said. “If we had a talented person that was a student, we would have to say, ‘Is this worth it?’

“We have trouble with all recruiting. This makes finding the talent and bringing people in tougher.”

Ankrom Moisan, with three offices on the West Coast, is big enough that it can at least weigh whether hiring a foreign national is a feasible option. For smaller architecture or engineering firms, the added cost makes the decision for them.

“It is tough to bring in foreign nationals,” said Brian Knight, a principal at WRK Engineers in Vancouver, Wash. “We have been approached by some really good candidates. It is just cost-prohibitive.”

The biggest immediate impact is on the students these firms will need to hire one day. For students like Razieh, anxiety about the future trumps a missed vacation. The latest version of the Trump administration’s travel ban has been blocked by district courts in Hawaii and Maryland. Nevertheless, there is fear about what will happen in the future.

“I am a student; I cannot predict what is going to happen,” Razieh said. “There could be a new travel ban overnight.”

It’s not an unreasonable fear, according to university officials who advise students to avoid foreign travel. The first travel ban was enacted over a weekend with virtually no notice and little preparation. It triggered protests at airports and headaches for foreign nationals trying to enter to U.S.

The situation has even caused concerns among employees who need to travel to international locations to complete projects, Van Dyke said.

“Our folks that are on H-1B (visas) have been able to travel,” he said. “There is a more detailed level of screening, but we have been able to make it through that.”

The travel ban has already navigated a long and winding road, which has only increased the uncertainty. The first attempt was halted by a federal court, leading to two submissions of revised versions; they have been unsuccessful so far.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that the Supreme Court issued a ruling regarding a previous version of the ban that allows the government to block travelers who did not have an existing relationship with people or organizations in the U.S. The government and courts are still debating what defines a relationship.

“It’s on, then it’s off, then it’s on,” said Dennis Galvan, vice provost for international affairs and professor of political science and international studies at the University of Oregon. “A piece of the immigration ban is the uncertainty it breeds.”

That uncertainty is already hurting student enrollments. The final tally isn’t in at the University of Oregon, but Galvan said it expects to register a 10 to 20 percent drop in new foreign students.

Portland State University has seen a similar decline in applications from foreign students. Overall, PSU saw a 16 percent decline in its number of foreign students. International graduate students are down 12 percent. One of the biggest declines was a 23 percent drop in students from Iran.

“For those countries (on the list subject to the ban) the numbers are fairly small, with the exception of Iran,” said Margaret Everett, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs at PSU. “There are many factors that affect enrollment, so the direct impact is hard to determine, but that (ban) is part of what is happening.”

Over the long term, the restrictions could impact the quality of education provided in the U.S. for future architects and engineers.

“It can be faculty, staff or students,” said Abe Schafermeyer, director of international student and scholar services at the University of Oregon. “If someone is interested in inviting a scholar to come and present, the ban could limit people from coming.”

Combine those factors with American education costs, and institutions in other countries begin to look more attractive. While U.S. universities are experiencing a drop in foreign enrollment, those in Canada are seeing a 25 percent jump.

“Education is one of the U.S.’ unparalleled exports,” Galvan said. “They can go other places if you close the door to U.S. education.”

Nevertheless, Razieh said her experience at PSU has been worth enduring additional challenges.

“Coming to America was the greatest opportunity in my life,” she said. “The environment here is just amazing for me.”

U.S. companies hope that attitude keeps students coming here in the long term. Losing those students at a time when the country has a severe shortage of them in technical fields could really hurt businesses that need talent.

“If you are embarking on an engineering career, would you still choose the U.S.?” Van Dyke asked. “There has been a lot of hand-wringing. Right now it hasn’t impacted us much. Three or four years down the road, will I still be saying that? Who knows? At this point, it’s the calm before the storm.”

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On Sept. 19, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocked central Mexico. With a major seismic event expected to hit the Pacific Northwest in coming decades, engineers visited Mexico City recently to see what they could learn to apply here.

“One of the biggest challenges is to get people prepared and make it a priority for the earthquake that is coming,” said Brian Knight, a principal of WRK Engineers in Vancouver, Washington.

Knight traveled to the quake zone Sept. 28 to Oct. 5 as part of a team. He was joined by Erica Fischer, an assistant professor of structural engineering at Oregon State University; David Swanson, principal/director for structural engineering at Reid Middleton in Everett, Washington; Darin Aveyard, a Reid Middleton project engineer; and Kenny O’Neill, another Reid Middleton project engineer.

The earthquake struck exactly 32 years after one with an 8 magnitude hit Mexico City, killing thousands of people. Numerous smaller quakes have since occurred as well.

“They have dealt with infrastructure (damage) before, so this isn’t new for them,” Fischer said. “That is interesting for us because we haven’t had to constantly recover. We haven’t had the practice.”

The recent earthquake killed 361 people. Swanson attributed much of the reduction in deaths from 1985 to changes in building codes and more resilient design. Structural frames, in many instances, were not installed on buildings’ interiors – a surprising discovery for Swanson.

“I was impressed at the creativity of the building retrofits that took place since 1985,” he said. “They put the frames on the exterior of the buildings. They took risks on the retrofits. As a structural engineer, it was cool to see.”

Swanson, who specializes in structural engineering, said that in many cases the Mexicans gave up aesthetics for practicality.

“They may not look super pretty, but they performed well,” he said. “They made no bones about it and said let’s forgo the looks and put these braces on the outside of the buildings.”

Many of the buildings that suffered the worst damage featured confined masonry – similar, but not quite the same as the unreinforced masonry found in Portland. Confined masonry walls use brick or concrete block units, and horizontal and vertical RC confining members built on all four sides of a masonry wall panel. Unlike unreinforced masonry, the panels don’t bear an entire force upon a building.

“The majority of the buildings that collapsed were the confined masonry,” Knight said. “A lot of those had poor structural layouts and configuration.”

One of the biggest factors that determined the level of damage was the type of soil underneath structures. Mexico City is largely built on a dry lake bed. The soft soil amplifies the shaking throughout structures.

All buildings have a natural period, or resonance, which is the number of seconds it takes to naturally vibrate back and forth. Soft soil sediments can significantly elongate the period of seismic waves and the increase in a natural period. That usually leads to more damage.

The phenomenon was also seen in how the city’s water and road infrastructure fared.

“What we are interested in is how much the earth moved,” Fischer said. “If you have earth moving in two directions, the (water) pipe can’t stand it.”

She said that information gathered during her trip would be helpful in a study she was conducting on how to make infrastructure, especially water infrastructure, withstand seismic forces better.

Maintenance was a key aspect in how infrastructure fared in Mexico, Fischer said. Water officials had pinpointed areas that were especially vulnerable and needed special attention.

“What we have seen is that there had been repairs that occurred to the pipeline,” she said. “By default, they have more modern materials so they are stronger and can resist movement.”

A key aspect of Fischer’s study, she said, is tied to water infrastructure.

“We are focusing on Western Oregon,” she said. “It is looking at the most vulnerable areas in Oregon and how to improve them so people have access to water after an earthquake.”

The Mexican trip brought home the danger big quakes pose, Swanson said.

“It reminds us as engineers that certain styles of buildings are known hazards,” he said. “We as a community ought to do something about it. It’s a vivid reminder that they are still hazardous.”

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