Rubio: US Will Revoke Visas of Chinese Students

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday the US will begin revoking the visas of some Chinese students, including those studying in "critical fields." China is the second-largest country of origin for international students in the United States, behind only India. In the 2023-24 school year, more than 270,000 international students were from China, making up roughly a quarter of all foreign students in the United States, the AP reports.

• "Under President Trump's leadership, the US State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields," Rubio wrote.

• The action comes at a time of intensifying scrutiny of the ties between US higher education and China. Last year, House Republicans issued a report warning that hundreds of millions of dollars in defense funding was going to research partnerships linked to the Chinese government, providing "back-door access to the very foreign adversary nation whose aggression these capabilities are necessary to protect against."
• The Department of Homeland Security raised similar issues in a letter barring international students at Harvard University last week. Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of "coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party," citing research collaborations with Chinese scholars. It also accused Harvard of training members of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a Chinese paramilitary group.

• The announcement came a day after Rubio halted the scheduling of new visa interviews for international students as the department prepares guidelines for increased vetting of their activity on social media. In his announcement on China, Rubio said the government will also "revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong."
• Even if the threat to revoke the visas of Chinese students isn't carried out, it will likely make the US a less popular destination, Politico reports. "The chilling effect on Chinese students choosing the United States as their preferred place to go for study will be enormous," says Rosie Levine, executive director of the US-China Education Trust. "There are some 99 million Communist Party members in China, so depending on how they enforce this, it could catch up probably every Chinese student interested in coming to the United States who could have some Communist Party connection within their background."

(More foreign students stories.)