Latest on the State Department revoking visas for Chinese students
(CBS, KYMA/KECY) - In the feud between President Donald Trump and Harvard, a federal judge has temporarily blocked the president's ban on foreign students coming into the United States to attend the university.
Meanwhile, the State Department announced it is revoking visas for Chinese students nationwide.
"Well, I'm in shock and I'm also a little sad," said Zichen Wang, who graduated from Princeton last week.
He is one of nearly 300,000 Chinese students in America whose visas are now in jeopardy.
"I think many of the Chinese students here, they make a meaningful and, you know, profound contribution to the research and scientific studies here in the U.S.," Wang expressed.
President Trump said Thursday he will not ban all Chinese students while adding, "We want them to be checked."
The reality is that U.S. law enforcement has already been conducting heightened screening of Chinese students for years because it believes the Chinese government uses some as untrained spies.
All Chinese citizens are obligated under China's 2017 National Intelligence Law to cooperate with intel collection.
U.S Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he'll restrict study in so-called critical fields while U.S. intel has identified biotech, AI, semiconductors, and other technology as China's top priorities.
Former Biden Administration Homeland Security official and CBS News contributor Samantha Vinograd said the U.S. already keeps a classified list of subjects deemed too sensitive for Chinese to study.
When Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan asked Vinograd how many of the subjects are "actually of concern," Vinograd answered saying, "What the FBI and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies do is really try to prioritize who's actually sending or trying to send the most sensitive information back to the Chinese government? It is a relatively small subset of students."
Rubio said he may also revoke visas for students connected to the Chinese Communist Party, but hasn't indicated how he defines those ties.
At Wesleyan, Chinese nationals make up the majority of foreign students.
University President Michael Roth spoke with Brennan on Face the Nation last weekend saying, "There is a real problem of espionage, not just with China, with other countries, and that's an old problem. But I think they're using that real problem as a vehicle for trying to impose their will on a sector that they don't like right now."
To watch more of Brennan's report, click here.
