The Trump administration will start revoking visas for some Chinese students, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday.

The State Department and Department of Homeland Security will work ‘aggressively to revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,’ Rubio said in a statement.

He also said the department will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from China and Hong Kong. 

China has the second highest number of international students pursing higher education in the United States in 2023/2024 with 277,398 students, according to the Institute of International Education. 

President Donald Trump is cracking down on visas from Chinese students

President Donald Trump has demanded extra vetting on foreign students studying in the United States. 

‘I want to make sure that the foreign students are people that can love our country,’ he said in the Oval Office Wednesday.

The administration has expanded social media vetting of foreign students and is seeking to ramp up deportations and revoke student visas as part of its wide-ranging efforts to fulfill the president’s hardline immigration agenda. 

And, on Tuesday, the administration ordered US embassies to halt all student visa applications as part of the president’s crack down on America’s higher education business.

Rubio directed officials to stop scheduling appointments with student visa applicants as they prepare to implement a social media vetting process

‘Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued septel, which we anticipate in the coming days,’ the cable states.

The Institute of International Education Open Doors data report found that in 2023-2024 academic year, the United States hosted a record-breaking 1.1 million international students – including an estimated 10,000 British students.

These students generated $43.8 billion through tuition, housing and living expenses, according to NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced an aggressive crackdown on Chinese students studying in the United States

 The action on Chinese students renews a priority from Trump´s first administration to clamp down on academic ties between the United States and China, which Republicans have called a threat to national security. 

In April, Trump ordered the Education Department to ramp up enforcement of a federal rule requiring colleges to disclose information about funding from foreign sources.

During his first term, the Education Department opened 19 investigations into foreign funding at U.S. universities and found that they underreported money flowing from China, Russia and other countries described as foreign adversaries.

Trump has waged war on elite universities, accusing them of antisemitism and blasting their ‘woke’ ideology. 

At the beginning of his second term, Trump ordered the deportation of foreign students who took part in pro-Hamas protests on college campuses in the US. 

Harvard has borne the brunt of Trump’s fire but it is also fighting back just as hard and sued the administration.

Congressional Republicans are supporting Trump’s efforts.

Last year, House Republicans issued a report warning that hundreds of millions of dollars in defense funding was going to research partnerships linked to the Chinese government, providing ‘back-door access to the very foreign adversary nation whose aggression these capabilities are necessary to protect against.’

The Department of Homeland Security raised similar issues in a letter barring international students at Harvard University last week. 

Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of ‘coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party,’ citing research collaborations with Chinese scholars. It also accused Harvard of training members of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a Chinese paramilitary group.