Chinese students say they are questioning their decision to study in the United States after the Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the federal government will try to “aggressively” revoke their visas.
Rubio said Wednesday that Chinese students “with connections with the Chinese communist party or studying in critical fields” would be attacked.
Chinese students who spoke with NBC News on Thursday said they arrived in the United States for the freedoms they felt they did not have in China, but now they say that the Trump administration is beginning to resemble the strict regime they left behind.
“The United States represents freedom. It is democracy … that’s why we come here to pursue our dreams,” said a Chinese doctorate. Student of a New Jersey University, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. “In China, the government can control education, secondary schools, schools, universities. We think the United States could be different.”
The State Department sent NBC’s news to the comments of spokesman Tammy Bruce during a press conference on Thursday in which Bruce said the department does not discuss the details of its visa process due to privacy problems.
“We use all the tools we have to examine and to make sure to know who is entering,” Bruce said. “In this particular case, the United States is putting the United States first by beginning to revoke the visas of Chinese students as justified.”
The Chinese embassy sent NBC’s news to the comments made by Mao NO, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the subject. None strongly criticized Rubio’s announcement on Thursday in a regular information session in Beijing.
“This politically discriminatory movement exposes the hypocrisy of the proclaimed values of freedom and openness of the United States, and will only damage the international image and credibility of the United States,” said NO.
The questions revolve around the new directive, including what “critical fields” will analyze the administration and what types of connections with the PCCH are under scrutiny. But it has already caused panic among many Chinese academics, which constitute the second group of largest international students in the United States.
While a temporary court order issued last week blocks the Trump administration to revoke the legal states of international students amid their mass termination of records, lawyers say they may not protect Chinese international students. Jath Shao, an immigration lawyer based in Cleveland, said that although the restriction order prevents international students from being arrested or detained, or that they lose their legal status, their visas can still be revoked. Without a visa, Shao said, students cannot return to the United States once they have gone, among a large number of other problems.
“If you are trying to get a job or a study … that means you are not lucky,” said Shao. “You are caught here. They are basically trying to remove all your options.”
Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst of the US Immigration Policy Program. In the Institute of Migration Policy, a group of non-partisan experts also mentioned that the Trump administration could argue that Chinese students fall into a completely different circumstance compared to those protected by the court order.
“We are seeing in several cases that the administration is saying that it is making individualized determinations,” said Bush-Joseph. “Even if they focus on a particular nationality, in any given case, they could say that this is based on the circumstances of an individual person.”
A Chinese student who studies economy at an Ivy League institution said he felt the tactics used by the Trump administration, including rhetoric and pointed and pointed intimidation, beaten from those used by the Chinese government. The student said it was not uncommon for Beijing to retain funds for certain political investigations, just like Trump has threatened with Harvard University, or use other repression methods.
“In China, we are all Chinese, so they cannot revoke our citizenship, but they can revoke the registration of students,” he said. “That happens when it comes to people involved in political activities.”
“I think they are only using the PCCH to evoke a ‘red scare’. They really don’t care about ideals,” said the Economics student, referring to the historical periods of fear in the United States about the possible increase in communism and socialism. “Let’s keep joking that Trump is learning from the Xi Jinping Play Book.”
The Ph.D. The student said that at this point, he and his classmates are considering returning to China or another Asian country, a plan that said he was not in the books before. He mentioned that before coming to America, he imagined a country that hosted diversity and included all the background and a place where he would leave roots. His thoughts about the United States have evolved drastically.
“My family and my best friends, they had a phone call with me to tell me: ‘Hey, I think you should return. We believe there is no reason for you to stay in the United States,'” he said.
Gisela Pérez Kusakawa, executive director of the Forum of Scholar Asian American Non -profit, said that the new policy would only serve to damage the United States and their own research ambitions.
“We know that many of our best and most brilliant talents are prominent scientists who have developed so many innovations that have changed the daily life of so many Americans,” he said. “They started as international students. They walked these campuses.”
He also pointed out that policy formulators are likely to be guided by erroneous concepts around Chinese citizens. While there has been a long belief that Chinese international students would recover intelligence to China, research shows that most hope to start their lives in the United States. From 2005 to 2015, 87% of PH.D. The students said they intended to remain in the US. A separate survey of more than 1,300 US Chinese researchers discovered that 89% “aimed to help advance in the leadership of the United States in science and technology.”
As disappointing as Rubio’s announcement, Kusakawa stressed that it is not necessarily surprising. In March, Republican legislators presented a bill that would stop the issuance of students from Chinese citizens seeking to study in American universities or participate in change programs.
“In many ways, there was already this existing fear that this could become a reality,” Kusakawa said. “But perhaps the surprising thing is the speed at which it is happening.”
Until now, the announcement has generated massive criticisms of many high -profile American legislators and leaders, including Gary Locke, a former United States ambassador to China and the president of the 100 -profit from the American Chinese non -profit committee of 100, and the Caucus of the Asian Pacific of the Congress.
“The wholesale revocation of student visas based on the national origin, and without an investigation, is xenophobic and incorrect,” legislators said on social networks. “To advance to these students, many of whom simply want to learn in a free and democratic society, is not only myopic but a betrayal of our values.”
