Rubio: We Will 'Aggressively Revoke Visas for Chinese Students'

I was just finishing up a story on Ron DeSantis and getting ready to wind down for the day when I realized I had a flurry of emails from the State Department in my inbox. I'd just written about Secretary of State et al. Marco Rubio's "new rules" against issuing visas to "foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans" a few hours ago, and now Rubio has released another statement related to visas. (I'm beginning to think the good secretary does not "wind down for the day.")  

The press release was titled "New Visa Policies Put America First, Not China," and it came with a short but direct statement that reads: 

Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields. We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.

Rubio echoed the sentiment on X: 

The U.S. will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) May 28, 2025

He didn't specify what the "critical fields" are, but I'd speculate that they are the ones that might allow the Chinese to steal intellectual property from the U.S. The Chinese theft of IP costs the United States hundreds of billions of dollars each year, and it's been going on for quite some time. It's a threat to our national security, it's a threat to the security of other nations, it's a threat to academic integrity, and it's a threat to American entrepreneurship. 

Earlier Today: Rubio's New Rules: If You Do This One Thing, You Can No Longer Enter the U.S.

And the Chinese often take advantage of our various visa programs to do it. Back in 2018, the first Donald Trump administration did take some steps to shorten "the length of visas for Chinese graduate students studying aviation, robotics and advanced manufacturing to one year from five" and had plans to do even more, but I'm not certain they were ever executed. 

In March, Rep. Riley M. Moore (R-W. Va.) introduced legislation called the "Stop Chinese Communist Prying by Vindicating Intellectual Safeguards in Academia Act," which would stop the U.S. from issuing student visas to Chinese nationals -- period. 

According to Moore, "Every year we allow nearly 300,000 Chinese nationals to come to the U.S. on student visas. We’ve literally invited the CCP to spy on our military, steal our intellectual property, and threaten national security. Just last year, the FBI charged five Chinese nationals here on student visas after they were caught photographing joint US-Taiwan live fire military exercises."

Earlier this week, the Donald Trump administration ordered U.S. embassies around the world to pause all student visa appointments so that it would have more time to do more vetting, particularly looking into each student's social media presence. That news came from an internal State Department memo viewed by CBS. In the memo, Rubio said that the pause was in effect until "until further guidance is issued." 

A Chinese official responded to the move by saying that China "urges the United States to earnestly safeguard the lawful and legitimate rights and interests of all international students, including those from China." 

Oh, please. When has the Chinese government ever done anything lawfully and legitimately? 

Anyway, I say kudos to Rubio and the State Department for putting our national interests above everything else. It's about time someone does. 

It's his birthday, and he'll revoke visas if he wants to. I just saw that the State Department posted that today is Secretary Rubio's birthday, but seriously, how awesome is it to have someone who is not afraid to stand up to the rest of the world as our country's top diplomat? We're in good hands, it seems. I may even have to make this "Rubio's New Rules" thing a series for the next four years. I'm loving it, and I hope you are, too!  

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