USA: House Representative tables bill to stop visas for Chinese students

Congressman Riley M. Moore, who represents the 2nd district of West Virginia, tabled what he called the Stop Chinese Communist Prying by Vindicating Intellectual Safeguards in Academia Act (Stop CCP VISAs Act) to the House last week.

He cited concerns over Chinese students that have been “caught spying on the US military or stealing advanced technology from American companies”, in a press release on the bill, which is officially listed by Congress as ‘To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to prohibit the admission of Chinese nationals as non-immigrant students, and for other purposes’.

The bill has been co-sponsored by five lawmakers in the House of Representatives: Brandon Gill (R-TX); Scott Perry (R-PA); Troy Nehls (R-TX); Andy Ogles (R-TN); and Rep. Addison McDowell (R-NC), and a companion legislation has also been introduced to the Senate by Republican Senator for Florida Ashley Moody.

The Bill has been introduced to Congress in the last week.

“Every year we allow nearly 300,000 Chinese nationals to come to the USA on student visas. We’ve literally invited the CCP to spy on our military, steal our intellectual property, and threaten national security,” said Congressman Moore.

“Congress needs to end China’s exploitation of our student visa program. It’s time we turn off the spigot and immediately ban all student visas going to Chinese nationals.”

He cited an example of five Chinese nationals that were charged by the FBI last year for photographing joint US-Taiwan military exercises, a University of Minnesota student convicted of flying a drone with a camera over a naval shipyard, and a Chinese national who entered the country on a student visa and was convicted of recruiting spies to steal advanced technology.

In the 2023/24 academic year, there were 277,398 Chinese students at higher education institutions in the USA, second only to India, and China was the top international source country for community colleges.

China was also comfortably the largest source market for F-1 visa-holding secondary students with 14,329 in 2023, according to the government’s last Sevis by the Numbers Report, and was the fourth-largest source for Intensive English Programs in 2023 in the IEP Open Doors report by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

The Bill is thought to be unlikely to get passed, despite Republican control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Nonetheless, international education associations were critical of the bill and concerned about the reputational impact that it could have on the USA as a study destination.

Fanta Aw, CEO and President of NAFSA Association of International Educators , said that no policy should target individuals solely on the basis of their national origin.

“Making international students – the most vetted and tracked non-immigrants in the United States – a scapegoat for xenophobic and anti-Chinese sentiment is misguided and antithetical to our national interest,” she said in a statement sent to StudyTravel Magazine.

“Chinese students, scholars, and faculty collaborate with their American counterparts to produce important research, spark innovations, and foster mutual understanding, ultimately making the United States safer. Given how interconnected our world is, severing educational ties with China will harm US economic competitiveness and hurt members of the Asian diaspora in this country, including American citizens,” Fanta said

“We need only look back to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to see how destructive fear-based policies can be. Isolationism will not serve us. Educational exchanges should continue to be a powerful tool to bridge the political differences between our countries, not widen them. It is imperative that the United States and China find common ground and international education is one of those areas.”

Mingze Sang, President of Chinese agency association BOSSA, told StudyTravel Magazine, “We’ve discussed the proposed bill with our members. While there’s a sense that such bills are frequently introduced without becoming law, there’s also an understanding that they can create uncertainty.”

He continued, “It’s important to remember that global student mobility is a powerful and ongoing trend. We advise parents and students to seek reliable information and avoid being swayed by potentially transient political discussions. We will, of course, continue to support students in their pursuit of international education.”

Gary Locke, the Chair of the Committee of 100, a membership organization of prominent Chinese Americans in business, government, academia, science, technology, and the arts, and a former US Ambassador to China, said that the bill could fuel discrimination and hostility and weaken the USA’s leadership in science. He called on the government to “uphold the American values of fairness, openness, and equal opportunity”.

Joanne Padrón Carney, Chief Government Relations Officer at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told ChemistryWorld, “Any kind of restrictions [on Chinese students] means that it will not be our nation that will be attracting the best and the brightest talent to come to our institutions to study and work, it will be other nations.”