U.S. will ‘aggressively’ revoke Chinese students’ visas, Rubio says

HONG KONG — The United States will start “aggressively” revoking the visas of Chinese students, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.

The announcement is the latest move in the Trump administration’s campaign against U.S. universities and international students in particular, after it revoked thousands of students’ visas, detained or deported others over political activism, and sought to bar international students from enrolling at Harvard.

Rubio said in a statement that visa criteria would also be revised to “enhance scrutiny” of all future 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 will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students,” he said.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment outside of business hours. Beijing has previously expressed opposition to the “politicization” of educational exchanges and said it would “safeguard the legitimate rights and interests” of Chinese students overseas.

China is the second-biggest source of international students in the U.S. after India, though numbers have been dropping in recent years amid growing U.S.-China tensions and disruptions from the Covid-19 pandemic. In the 2023-24 academic year there were about 277,000 Chinese students in the U.S., down from a peak of more than 370,000 in 2019-20.

International students make up about 6% of the total population of U.S. higher education overall.

NBC News reported Tuesday that the Trump administration had stopped scheduling new interviews for foreign nationals seeking visas to study in the U.S., citing an internal State Department cable. The cable said the suspension was in preparation for expanded social media screening of applicants.