May 28 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday that they will work to “aggressively revoke” visas of Chinese students, including those with ties to China’s communist party studying in so-called critical fields.
The State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security on the visa revocations, Rubio said in the two-sentence press release, which also announced that the Trump administration “will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.”
No reason was given but it comes as the Trump administration has been cracking down on immigration and targeting universities over alleged anti-Semitism, moves that have sent shockwaves through the higher education system.
The visa changes could potentially affect university pocketbooks. There are more students from China studying at U.S. universities than colleges than from any other country aside from India, according to U.S. statistics.
In 2024, there were 1.1 million international students in the United States, 331,602 were Indian and 277,398 were from China. South Korea was far behind with some 43,000 students.
Concern about Chinese academics stealing technology and intellectual property was a large concern for the first Trump administration, whose Justice Department had launched a controversial China Initiative program to specifically prosecute Chinese accused of corporate espionage.
Under pressure and criticism that the program was discriminatory and fueled intolerance and bias, the Biden administration ended the China Initiative in February 2022, but not to end such prosecutions, only to decouple them from a single nation.
Some Republicans have wanted to bring it back.
Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., in March introduced legislation to halt the issuance of student visa to Chinese nationals on accusations it is enabling Chinese spying.
“The CCP poses an existential threat to the U.S.,” Moore said in a statement following Rubio’s announcement. We should not be letting 300,000 Chinese nationals into our research institutions every year.”
Rubio made the announcement after he informed U.S. embassies of new restrictions on visas as he ordered a hold on any new interviews of foreign student visa applications as they expand the vetting of applicants’ social media accounts.
The Trump administration has been using comments on social media to support anti-Israel claims used to detain international students with intentions of deporting them.
Rubio has said they were targeting those whose political stances could harm U.S. foreign policy objectives.
Also Wednesday, Rubio also announced “a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans.”
