Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that the US would begin to revoke the visas of Chinese students, including those connected to the Chinese Communist Party.
The visas of those studying in critical fields will also be revoked, Mr Rubio said in a post on X. He said visa criteria would be revised to enhance scrutiny of all future applications from mainland China and Hong Kong.
The post did not include any additional details. The National has contacted the State Department for comment.
China had the second highest number of international students in the US in 2023-2024, behind India, with 277,398, according to the Institute of International Education. In that same time period, the US hosted a record 1.1 million international students.
This comes after the State Department issued a directive pausing interviews for foreign students looking to come to study in the US.
It is unclear how long the freeze will last, but a memo from the State Department said it was to allow for preparation to increase scrutiny of applicants' social media posts.
The White House has waged a battle with universities that initially focused on elite institutions such as Harvard and Columbia over claims of on-campus anti-Semitism, following the wave of pro-Palestine protests last year. That has turned into a bigger attack over the role of US higher education and the foreign students whose tuition is a crucial source of income for schools around the country.
