Chinese nationals who infiltrated US universities
The Trump administration has intensified its scrutiny of Chinese nationals studying at U.S. universities after several instances in recent years of students from the communist country engaging in alleged surreptitious activity while in the United States.
The incidents, which have involved allegations of espionage, conspiracy and accusations of misleading federal officials, occurred as a result of Chinese nationals or others with Chinese ties participating in joint education programs between the United States and China.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security plan to "aggressively revoke" student visas of Chinese nationals, "including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party."
A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson blasted the new policy in a statement Thursday on X, saying the move was "fully unjustified" and damaging to the United States' reputation.
"Citing ideology and national security as a pretext, the move seriously hurts the lawful rights and interests of international students from China and disrupts people-to-people exchanges between the two countries," spokesperson Lin Jian said.
Nearly 300,000 Chinese nationals have student visas in the United States. It is unclear if the State Department plans to target all of them or only some. Fox News Digital reached out to the department for clarity.
Below is a look at some recent incidents involving Chinese nationals at universities.
The DOJ brought charges against five University of Michigan students last year after a sergeant major encountered them at Camp Grayling in 2023.
The students had cameras with them and were discovered as the U.S. National Guard was conducting a massive training operation at the site with Taiwanese military members, according to a complaint.
They were all Chinese nationals attending the University of Michigan as part of the school's joint program with a Shanghai-based university, an FBI official wrote in the complaint, noting some of them had taken photos of Camp Grayling's military installations and operations.
The FBI asked the court to issue arrest warrants for the students for making false statements and destroying records.
Two Chinese nationals who were graduate students at the University of Michigan pleaded guilty in 2020 after they were caught illegally entering and photographing defense infrastructure at a naval air station in Key West, Florida.
Fengyun Shi, a Chinese national studying at the University of Minnesota, was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia last year of unlawfully using a drone to take photos of naval bases in Norfolk, Virginia.
Shi was sentenced to six months in prison and a year of supervised release, and the Biden administration revoked his visa in response to the charges. ICE announced in May that it deported him to China.
While not a Chinese national, Charles Lieber, former chair of Harvard's chemistry department, was convicted in 2021 of making false statements to authorities and failing to report income from his work with China's Wuhan University of Technology and a contract he had with China's Thousand Talents Program.
Ji Chaoqun, a Chinese national and one-time student at the Illinois Institute of Technology, was sentenced to eight years in prison after he was convicted by a jury in 2022 of attempting to commit espionage and theft of trade secrets.
Ji was found to have gathered information on defense contractors, engineers and others as part of a broader effort by high-level Chinese intelligence officials to obtain inside access to U.S. technology advancements.
Rubio's announcement also comes after Harvard filed a lawsuit alleging the Trump administration improperly banned all foreign nationals from the Ivy League school by revoking its student visa certification. A judge temporarily blocked the administration from carrying out the ban as the case plays out in the courts.
ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons told Harvard in a letter made public through court filings that the revocation was a result of the alleged prevalence of antisemitism on campus but also a result of the administration's "serious concerns" that the university has "coordinated with the Chinese Communist Party."
Lyons cited several examples, including Harvard accepting $151 million from foreign donors since 2020, working with "China-based academics" on projects funded by an "Iranian government agent," partnering with Chinese universities and using public funds to do so and collaborating with people "linked to China's defense-industrial base."
"This coordination is a valid and substantive reason for withdrawing Harvard University's [Student Exchange Visitor Program] certification to enroll foreign students," Lyons wrote.
Harvard attorneys argued during a court hearing Thursday that the Trump administration did not give the university a chance to rebut the claims about antisemitism and CCP ties before the foreign student ban was enacted. The administration agreed to give Harvard one month to respond to those claims while the ban remains on hold.
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