The U.S. will 'aggressively' revoke Chinese students' visas, Marco Rubio says

HONG KONG — The United States volition commencement “aggressively” revoking the visas of Chinese students, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party oregon studying successful captious fields.

The announcement is the latest determination successful the Trump administration’s run against U.S. universities and planetary students successful particular, aft it revoked thousands of students’ visas, detained oregon deported others implicit governmental activism, and sought to bar planetary students from enrolling astatine Harvard.

Rubio said successful a statement that visa criteria would besides beryllium revised to “enhance scrutiny” of each aboriginal visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese territory of Hong Kong.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department volition enactment with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students,” helium said.

The Chinese Embassy successful Washington did not instantly respond to an emailed petition for remark extracurricular of concern hours. Beijing has antecedently expressed absorption to the “politicization” of acquisition exchanges and said it would “safeguard the morganatic rights and interests” of Chinese students overseas.

China is the second-biggest root of planetary students successful the U.S. aft India, though numbers person been dropping successful caller years amid increasing U.S.-China tensions and disruptions from the Covid-19 pandemic. In the 2023-24 world twelvemonth determination were astir 277,000 Chinese students successful the U.S., down from a highest of much than 370,000 successful 2019-20.

International students marque up astir 6% of the full colonisation of U.S. higher acquisition overall.

NBC News reported Tuesday that the Trump medication had stopped scheduling caller interviews for overseas nationals seeking visas to survey successful the U.S., citing an interior State Department cable. The cablegram said the suspension was successful mentation for expanded societal media screening of applicants.