Washington (AP) – Foreign Minister Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that the United States will revoke the visa of some Chinese students, including those who study in “critical areas”.
China is the second largest country of origin for international students in the USA, behind India. In the school year 2023-2024, more than 270,000 international students came from China and were about a quarter of all foreign students in the United States.
“After the leadership of President Trump, the US Foreign Ministry will work with the Ministry of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke the Visa for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or study in critical areas,” wrote Rubio.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a message that was looking for a comment on Wednesday evening.
The campaign comes at a time of reinforcing the investigation of the connections between US university formation and China. This month, House Republicans urged Duke University to shorten her relationships with a Chinese university, and explained Chinese students to gain access to nationwide -financed research from Duke.
Last year, the House Republicans said a report in which hundreds of millions of dollars were associated with defense financing in relation to the Chinese government, which enabled “access to the very foreign opponent nation whose aggression must be protected from which these aggression must be protected.”
The Department of Homeland Security raised similar problems in a letter with the international students at Harvard University last week. Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of coordinating “with the Chinese party’s Communist Party” and cited research collaborations with Chinese scholars. It also accused Harvard, members of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a Chinese paramilitary group.
The announcement was made one day after Rubio had hired the planning of fresh Visa interviews for international students, since the department prepares guidelines for increasing review of their activities in social media.
The procedure against Visa contributes to uncertainty for international students
Together, the announcements of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have increased uncertainties for the international students of America, which were confronted by the administration of President Donald Trump.
At the beginning of this year, the US immigration and customs authorities attended and tried to deport students who were involved in the protests on the campus against the Israel Hamas War. And the Trump administration abruptly terminated the legal status of thousands of international students before he reversed and then the reasons from which the students can lose permission to study in the USA
The student of the University of Wisconsin, Vladyslav Plyaka, planned to visit Poland to see his mother and renew his visa, but he does not know when this will be possible because Visa appointments are exposed. He also does not feel sure to leave the USA, even if appointments are resumed.
“I don’t think I have enough confidence in the system at that time,” said Plyaka, who came to the USA as an exchange student in the high school from Ukraine and stayed for college. “I understand that it probably happened for security measures, but I would probably end my training for the next two or three years and then return to Ukraine.”
The Trump administration last week Harvard University from the Enrollment of International Students, a decision that was taken by a federal judge until a lawsuit enrolled.
Trump said on Wednesday that Harvard, whose current student population consists of more than a quarter of international students, should limit this percentage to around 15%.
“I would like to make sure that foreign students are people who can love our country,” said Trump reporters in the Oval Office.
The measures against Chinese students renew a priority of Trump’s first administration to deal with academic relationships between the United States and China, which the Republicans have given a threat to national security. In April, Trump ordered the educational department to improve the enforcement of a federal rule in which the universities were asked to disclose information about financing from foreign sources.
During his first term, the education department opened 19 investigations into foreign funds at US universities and found that they were subjected to China, Russia and other countries described as foreign opponents.
Hours before Rubio announced the change, the Eastern Michigan University announced that they ended engineering partnerships with two Chinese universities and reacted to Republican printing. MP John Moolenaar, the Republican Chair of House Select Committee in the China Communist Party, recently asked the Eastern Michigan and other universities to end partnerships with Chinese universities.
Last year, around 1.1 million international students were in the USA-a source of necessary income for tuition fees. International students have no financial support from the federal government. They often pay the full price.
The Northeastern University, which has more than 20,000 international students, has created “emergency plans” for those who have made Visa delays, spokesman Renata Nyul said without explaining this.
“This is a very dynamic situation, and we monitor the developments in real time in order to evaluate possible effects,” she said.
The United States is planning more detailed reviews of the visa applicants
In his announcement about China, Rubio said that the government would also revise the visa criteria to improve the examination of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.
Visa applicants have had to provide social media handles to the Foreign Ministry since 2019. The cable on Tuesday did not indicate what type of additional examination the fresh guidelines would cover, but the fresh reviews could be more resource -intensive.
Additional check will stop the students from coming to the USA, said Jonathan Friedman von Pen America, a literary and free expression organization.
“The details remain vague, but this political policy is to launch the long -standing place of the USA as a beacon for intellectual and cultural exchange with the world,” said Friedman.
The move to dismantle the international enrollment in Harvard is based on a dispute with the Ministry of Homeland Security, which demanded that information about foreign students who could link to violence or protests that could lead to their deportation. Harvard said it was followed by the recording request, but the agency said her answer was not possible.
On Wednesday, Trump said that more control over Harvard’s students was necessary.
“They take people from the areas of the world who are very radicalized and we don’t want them to have problems in our country,” said Trump.
For Harvard, the Trump government has reduced over 2.6 billion dollars of federal granting because it presses the demands for changes to the guidelines and the government at the Ivy League school, which the president has referred to as a breeding site of liberalism and anti -Semitism. Harvard has pushed back and submitted a lawsuit against the administration.
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The authors of Associated Press Seung Min Kim in Washington and Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco contributed to this report.
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