Yesterday, the US canceled the visa application process for all international students and will tighten the screening of applicants' social media content. This is a drastic step taken by the Trump administration to ensure that students who are "unfriendly to US policies" will not be able to continue their studies at domestic higher education institutions
Today, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the US will be more aggressive in canceling visas for students from China, especially in critical fields of study and those linked to the Chinese Communist Party. In addition, it will also review visa criteria to increase scrutiny of all visa applications from China and Hong Kong.
The two announcements made this week will have a major impact not only on US higher education institutions but also on major local technology companies that hire graduates as employees. In data shared by the Department of Commerce, India and China account for 54% of the total number of international students in the US. China alone will send nearly 300,000 to the United States by 2024.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has already called on the US government to increase investment in education, as more than half of the world’s top artificial intelligence (AI) researchers are now from China.
Restricting the entry of international students is not a new US policy. In the 1980s, Iranian students were blocked from continuing their studies due to the Iranian Revolution and US embassy employees were held hostage for 444 days.
Later, during Trump’s first term as president, he banned all citizens from several Muslim countries due to the risk of terrorist attacks. He even froze student visa applications from China in 2020 to prevent the flow of technology for military purposes.