People inside and outside the State Department struggled Thursday to see how new plans to revoke Chinese student visas and whether this would eventually become a blanket ban on Americans to learn Chinese.
While the government may begin to deprive visas infinitely, state department officials familiar with the consular issues have been anonymous because they are not authorized to speak publicly, the embassy has not received official instructions on how to implement the program, which also includes revising visa standards to increase review of future applicants in China and Hong Kong.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced late Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Homeland Security will “actively revoke” visas for Chinese students who have ties to the Chinese Communist Party or study in “critical areas.”
But this is not easy to put into practice, and the way it does will explain a lot about the Trump administration’s ultimate goal.
Reviewing all Chinese student visas can be a difficult task for the State Council and the Ministry of Homeland Security. Government data shows that there are about 277,000 Chinese students in the United States during the semester between 2023 and 2024.
“It's crazy,” said a State Department official involved in a discussion on how to implement the directive. “It's going to be a huge headache for us.” The person and others were discussed anonymously sensitive internal processes.
The government may hope that the threat alone will prompt students to reconsider attending our institutions, just as undocumented immigrants are encouraged to deceive themselves.
“That’s the only reason you put it there – it’s because you hope you might be potentially affected by the Chinese family,” Carl Risch served as assistant secretary of state for consular affairs during the first Trump administration. “And you want them to be scared.”
Ritchie said the government may not yet know that the policy applies, but even if the guidelines are established, the public still won’t know because the State Department does not usually promote new standards of review.
“You will implement it within the office, changing the guidance of adjudication officers – usually this information is not disclosed,” Risch said.
State Council spokesman Tammy Bruce declined to provide detailed information on visa reviews, including how many Chinese students will be affected, the time of review or the specific advantages of links to the CCP will be assessed. “We do not provide detailed information on visa methods,” she told reporters on Thursday.
Just losing a student visa may not make students ineligible to continue studying on college campuses, although this may make it impossible for them to leave the United States without being effectively locked down.
However, if immigration and customs law enforcement terminates students’ records in their student and exchange visitor information systems, it is likely that the university will forbid them from continuing to attend and may be a step in the deportation process. ICE's power to quickly terminate students' SEVIS records is the subject of a strong litigation ongoing, with a federal judge in California last week denied a national injunction that prevented the administration from “adverse legal effect” for those whose SEVIS records have been terminated.
John Sandweg, the head of ICE under the Obama administration, mentioned in a statement Wednesday in a statement to the Department of Homeland Security and the state that the Trump administration will “do both.”
Sandweg said most of the initial Chinese student reviews can be performed through ICE, CBP and software maintained by the State Council. But the CCP case will require further investigation by analysts, he said.
He said some students would leave, while others might try to claim asylum or disappear in the United States. Sandweg said Chinese students outside the United States were not given much opportunity to protest the decision, but people in the country do have the right to challenge their visa revocation in the court system.
The policy could hint at thousands of students and could become a blanket ban for Chinese students on U.S. campuses, depending on how it is implemented.
Rick Waters, the inaugural coordinator of the State Council’s Chinese House of Representatives, said he was skeptical that the U.S. could “pursuing” the Chinese student population because it would extend the time and resources for consular officials in the issuance of visas.
“When we talk about this [determining CCP] In my opinion, connecting, this is not feasible. “Even the party members are not something people put into social media,” Waters said.
Nahal Toosi, Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein contributed to the report.
