Happy with restrictions

China happy with restrictions on its students, lawmaker says

“Because they want these people back,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi said.

By Gregory Svirnovskiy

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi said Sunday the White House’s move to revoke visas for Chinese students studying in the U.S. is likely to have the Chinese Communist Party “cheering for this policy.”

“Because they want these people back,” Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) told CBS’ Margaret Brennan on Sunday on “Face the Nation.” “They want the scientists and the entrepreneurs and the engineers who can come and help their economy. And so we are probably helping them, as well as other countries, more than helping ourselves with this policy.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio last Wednesday announced the measure to aggressively revoke “visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”

Roughly 277,000 Chinese students studied in the U.S. last year. And nearly 20 percent of Silicon Valley’s highly educated tech employees come from China.

But the details behind the White House push — including whether the administration plans to target every Chinese international student — remain unclear. Tensions between the two countries, already roiled by high-stakes tariff negotiations, have further strained.

“There’s not enough details,” Krishmanoorthi, who launched a run for Illinois’ open U.S. Senate seat in May, told Brennan.

“However, this appears to be much broader and it’s terribly misguided and it appears prejudicial and discriminatory.”

Krishnamoorthi is the ranking member on the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party. He told Brennan that increased scrutiny on Chinese students can make sense.

“I think that you should definitely have heightened vetting, especially in certain critical areas because we know that the CCP tries to steal, for instance, intellectual property or worse,” Krishnamoorthi said. “But the way that this is currently structured looks very, very suspicious.”