Internationalisation of higher education has mostly been theorised from a Euro-American perspective, taking less into account how legacies of colonial expansion impose unique demands on universities. This article highlights the tensions that arise when universities must respond simultaneously to transnational pressures for internationalisation and local demands for racial justice. Drawing on insights from two qualitative case studies at public universities in South Africa and Brazil, it is argued that the inbound mobility of regional students serves the instrumental purpose of holding together these conflicting imperatives at the level of the individual institution without fully accounting for international students in institutional discourses, policies and structures.