President Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law Wednesday, potentially putting the approval of some U.S. visas into the hands of state attorneys general.

The law, named for an Augusta University nursing student who was murdered last year in Athens, Ga., introduces harsher detention policies for people in the country without authorization and gives federal immigration officers more latitude in whom they can arrest and deport. The legislation passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support and is the first bill signed into law in Trump’s second term.

Some higher education policy experts raised alarm earlier this month about how the bill would affect international students and scholars studying in the U.S., along with those who seek to.

The legislation gives state attorneys general or other authorized state officers the power to seek sweeping bans from the federal government on visas from countries that won’t take back deportees. This includes countries such as Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador that are south of the U.S. border and frequently a part of immigration debates, but it could also apply to countries like China and India, which colleges often depend on for large swaths of their international student population.

“It really creates a tremendous amount of uncertainty and anxiety among all international students,” Miriam Feldblum, co-founder and executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, previously told Inside Higher Ed.