FRANKFURT AN DER ODER, Germany—Before 25-year-old Abhishek Budhiraja leaves his dorm to go to campus, he pats down his pockets. “Phone, keys, wallet, headphones,” he says, running through his checklist. Recently, that list has grown longer: “Student ID, passport, residence permit.”

FRANKFURT AN DER ODER, Germany—Before 25-year-old Abhishek Budhiraja leaves his dorm to go to campus, he pats down his pockets. “Phone, keys, wallet, headphones,” he says, running through his checklist. Recently, that list has grown longer: “Student ID, passport, residence permit.”

Today, like most other days, Budhiraja anticipates needing to prove his identity.

On the far side of a blue city bridge that connects Germany’s eastern border city of Frankfurt an der Oder to its twin city, Slubice, Poland, a group of border agents and police officers block the sidewalk. They wear bulletproof vests affixed with walkie-talkies, and hawkishly scan cars and pedestrians as they pass. A stream of morning commuters on foot walk by them without slowing their gait.

Budhiraja, who came to Germany in January 2024 on a student visa from India, is not among them. As he approaches Slubice, steps away from his university campus, five agents knowingly look at one another. A guard in military gear steps forward, voicing a rote command Budhiraja has long memorized.

A bearded man in glasses with a black jacket over a red hoodie sits in a bus seat.

“It’s always like this. I’m getting stopped every day,” Budhiraja said afterward.