(NewsNation) — State Department head Marco Rubio announced the agency would be moving forward with its plan to revoke the student visas of Chinese nationals at universities.
According to a statement from Rubio, the State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to revoke visas, and the agency would also be revising the criteria for visas to “enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.”
“The U.S. will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” Rubio said in a post on social platform X.
Mao Ning, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in China, called it “a politicized and discriminatory move” that contradicts the freedom and openness the United States touts.
GOP Florida Rep. Greg Steube joined “NewsNation Now” on Thursday to discuss the Trump administration’s student visa crackdown. He said it was a “step in the right direction” to ensure the country is safe.
“We’re free and open for our citizens; we’re not free and open for the No. 1 national security threat to the United States, which is the Chinese Communist Party,” Steube said. “I applaud Secretary Rubio for taking this measure. I think all the student visas in this country should be examined if they’re coming from countries that put their national security before ours.”
Steube said he and other Republicans in Congress are in the process of drafting a bill that would not allow Chinese Communist Party members to come into the Department of Energy or have access to U.S. nuclear sites because of national security risks.