This week, the Trump administration’s announcement that visas for Chinese students will be “actively” revoked, inflamed uncertainty among international students in the country. And in California, it sparked anger among leaders in the Chinese-American community who described such targeting measures as “xenophobia.”
Little has been revealed about the administration’s plans. This represents yet another salvo in President Trump’s militant push to shake up academia, disrupt campus life and remodel higher education that has spilled into courts around the country.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in a social media post that the revocation of the visa will include “connections with the Chinese Communist Party and those studying in important fields.”
In a statement, Rubio said that while the US Department of State and Homeland Security will cancel their visas, “we will revise the standards for visas to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and the People’s Republic of Hong Kong.”
Fearing that such actions could endanger the academic future of tens of thousands of Chinese students enrolled at universities across the country, they threaten billions of dollars of tuition payments that universities already face with research funding and other cuts that will affect Trump’s education policies.
Potential financial fallouts are acute concern in California, where Chinese students form the largest international group. California’s approximately 51,000 Chinese citizens make up more than a third of the state’s nearly 141,000 foreign students.
Trump’s plan was widely criticized Thursday by politicians, professors and others from California and beyond. For many, Rubio’s Communist Party summons led to dark recollections of past anti-China policies, including the 1882 China Exclusion Act.
Rep. Judy Chew (D. Monterry Park) called the visa decision “xenophobia” and called it “just hurt America.”
“This is another example of the Trump administration targeting Chinese people instead of the Chinese government, assuming that all Chinese are pawns of the Chinese Communist Party,” Chu said. “That’s all about xenophobia and it reminds me of China’s exclusion law.”
State Department spokesman Tammy Bruce said at a news briefing Thursday he would not detail the standards the US uses on its review visa. She said the department is thinking about “the nature of how America can be safe, safe and prosperous.”
Bruce has raised the illusion of intellectual property theft by China. This is a well-documented tragedy that is estimated to cost billions of dollars.
“The United States cannot suppress military growth, intelligence report recovery, or opposition to not tolerate the exploitation of US universities’ CCPs or the theft of US research, intellectual property or technology,” she said. “…the nature of what China has done with technology, information, intellectual property, US research, copyright, etc. — this is new and not confusing. This is one way we can certainly try to mitigate that problem.”
Some warn of brain drain
Even as some educators questioned the administration’s willingness to implement the plan, one UCLA professor likened students and academics to an attitude designed to rattle, while others said the policy hopes to launch a wave of departure that can touch the main “brain drainage.” Such Exodus, they said, could favor China in its global race for global hegemony in key areas such as technology, defense, and medicine.
“The US has basically succeeded by not caring about what the brain has a passport. We care about the brain,” said David M. Lampton, professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a Chinese expert. “This is a pointless and counter-effective policy. We drive a lot. [Chinese scholars] surely. And it would make China a more attractive place for research for some professors. ”
But it’s not just China. Lampton and others said revoking China’s student visas could have a calm impact on academia and could turn off the brightest minds from other countries as well.
“This is not appealing to academics around the world,” Lampton said. He said countries such as the UK and Germany could benefit from scholars seeking safe harbors outside the US.
The California university has expressed concern. The University of California has 17,832 Chinese students on all campuses. Locally, it has nearly 6,000 for USC and 2,208 for UCLA.
“The University of California is concerned about the US State Department’s announcement that it will cancel visas for Chinese students,” said Rachel Zaentz, senior director of UC Strategic and Critical Communications. “Chinese students, as well as all international students, academics, faculty and staff, are important members of our university community and make significant contributions to our research, education, patient care and public service mission.”
Ray Wang, a Chinese student at UCLA, said he and others “feel helpless.”
“We are all constantly watching the news,” said the King, who will graduate next month. “I think the biggest problem is that there is no clear roadmap. The administration is issuing very mixed signals, and the real problem is inconsistent.”
Chinese students are financial benefits
Chinese students benefit from American universities. Because, like other foreigners, they pay far more than our students do. Foreign students usually pay the full amount of the school and, in some cases, special fees.
For example, at the University of California, people entering the system have a non-resident fee of $34,200 a year. So, how much does Chinese students contribute to UC’s financial resources?
According to estimates calculated in The Times, the annual tuition fee and the $49,134 per student in China costs $49,134, which means you can pay a total of over $876 million a year. Additionally, the overall economic impact, including other items such as rooms and boards, is much higher.
“This is an important source of income for the university,” said George Blumental, former UC Prime Minister Santa Cruz and former director of the UC Berkeley Centre for Higher Education Research, especially in the year where there are many other financial stocks. In the present moment, “This will at least have a major economic impact on public universities in California.”
According to Blumenthal, the university is simultaneously dealing with financial hits and stressors in multiple aspects, including state cuts related to tough budget years, extensive cancellations of federal health and science research grants, and abrupt reductions in federal government rebates for overhead costs associated with research.
International students get caught up in
The Trump administration’s dizzy executive orders and other directives focusing on higher education are particularly overwhelming for international students and faculty.
This week, the Department of State said it was preparing to stop scheduling visa interviews with foreign students and increase the screening of international students’ social media activities.
“Using social media as a useful tool to identify bad foreign students also seems to be an inadequate and invasive tool, but it is part of a larger pattern of management that has been bent towards political cleansing,” said John Aubrey Douglass, senior research fellow at the UC Berkeley Center for Higher Education Research. “…It’s all part of an effort to erode the autonomy and reliability of American universities, and has an incredible level of strength.”
On Thursday, a federal judge extended an order that blocked an attempt by the Trump administration to stop Harvard from registering foreign students.
But among people in the Asian American community in LA, the issue of Visa cancellation was the best in the heart.
Connie Chung Joe, the Asian American CEO who advances Southern California Judge, said the visa issue, which reminded China’s exclusion law, was falsely labelled “part of American history, which was widely accused of racist people of Chinese descent,” or inherently labelled as dangerous in nature.
“It appears the administration is choosing to repeat history by implementing an immigration policy that specifically targets students of Chinese nationality without a clear and legitimate cause,” she said.
Wang, a UCLA student, will immediately apply for a work visa under the cloud. He said the unpredictability of the Trump administration made him feel unsafe.
And he said “not protected.”
Times staff writer Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report.
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