The Trump administration is taking steps to terminate visas for Chinese students studying in the United States.
“The U.S. will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in a post on X Wednesday evening.
The change in policy is aimed at putting “America first, not China,” according to the State Department.
“Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students,” the department said in a statement.
The State Department says it “will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.”
During the 2023-2024 academic year, more than 277,000 Chinese students were studying at American universities, according to the Institute of International Education.
“How can we keep offering 300,000 student visas to Chinese nationals every year when we know they are legally required to gather intelligence for the CCP? The answer is simple: we can’t,” Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., recently wrote on X.
The Stanford Review, Stanford University’s student-run newspaper, recently published a lengthy investigative article on the influence and activity of the Chinese Communist Party on the school’s campus.
The Chinese Communist Party is “orchestrating a widespread intelligence-gathering campaign at Stanford,” the investigation found.
“China experts speaking anonymously confirmed that it requires students to regularly submit ‘Situation Reports’ to Chinese diplomatic missions about their research,” the review explains. “These experts also confirmed that the CCP uses these reports to identify and acquire sensitive technological information.”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning called the plan to terminate the student visas “a politicized and discriminatory action,” adding that the move “lays bare the U.S. lie that it upholds the so-called freedom and openness.”
The announcement comes as the Trump administration is actively cracking down on all foreign student visas at Harvard University.
Last week, the Trump administration announced it had stripped Harvard of its ability to enroll foreign students.
“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in response and a federal judge quickly issued a decision temporarily blocking the Trump administration’s action.
Currently, there are over 6,700 international students studying at Harvard, making up about 27% of the Ivy League school’s student body, according to the university.
