Trump's foreign student crackdown: Brain drain or global gain?

The American Dream has been a driving force for thousands of youngsters from developing countries, across the globe. However, under Trump 2.0 what is now being witnessed is the American urge to tie sovereign concerns with education. An example of this is from May this year, when the Trump administration announced sweeping policy changes to revoke visas for Chinese students, targeting those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), or those studying in critical fields like STEM courses. Students from other countries as well have been at the receiving end of policy changes under Trump 2.0, as US embassies have been directed to stop processing visas for new students. The directives have come as the government prepares to implement comprehensive social media screening for all international applicants after incidents in Harvard, that followed pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations last year. President Trump has often described top American Universities as havens for 'Marxist maniacs and lunatics'. Thus, there are two dominant issues here, at hand which seem to be driving the administrative changes in the US towards education for foreign students.
The first issue is that of the People's Republic of China using students for purposes of espionage, which the US administration has zero tolerance for. While the issue has become a flashpoint in 2025, then FBI director, Christopher Wray had told a Senate hearing in 2018 that what was being witnessed was 'non-traditional collectors (of intelligence), especially in academic setting', and that every Chinese student who is sent by China has to go through a party and a government approval process. Thus, this ensures that no Chinese student who goes abroad is untethered from the State. In 2020, under Trump 1.0, the administration had started selectively revoking visas for Chinese graduate students with ties to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) institutions and the Biden administration had expanded the security.
In June this year, Yunqing Jian, a Chinese student at the University of Michigan, was arrested by the FBI for allegedly smuggling fusarium graminearum, a dangerous biological pathogen into the US. The fungus is toxic to humans as well as livestock and causes significant crop damage as well. Jian, who had received funding from the Chinese government for her work on the pathogen in China has been charged with illegally importing biological pathogens. Her ties to the CCP are being scrutinised. Her partner, Zunyong Liu has also been charged with the smuggling. These are not lone incidents.
In 2018, Li Chaoqun who studied electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology, was arrested, and convicted in 2022, for acting as an illegal agent of China's ministry of state security. Ji had been tasked with gathering biographical information on US-based engineers and scientists, including those working for defence contractors, to recruit them as spies for China. He had also lied about his contacts with the Chinese intelligence in his US Army Reserves Application, and in 2023, he was sentenced to eight years in prison. In 2024, Fengyun Shi, a 26-year-old graduate at the University of Minnesota, pleaded guilty to misdemeanour espionage charges under the Espionage Act. He had used a drone to take photos of US naval facilities near Newport News Shipyard in Virginia, which is a site for manufacturing nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. Shi was sentenced to six months in prison and deported to China after his visa was revoked.
Sun Tzu's Art of War, China's ancient treatise on statecraft and warfare emphasises intelligence gathering as critical to military success, with spies being a cost-efficient way to outmanoeuvre enemies without direct conflict. He had identified five types of spies, ranging from local spies, inward spies, converted spies, doomed spies and surviving spies. In the current times we live in students and academics fit the role of surviving spies, the ones that return with intelligence. China's intelligence operations are diverse and given that every State, including the US wants to safeguard its sovereignty, a defensive approach as the US is currently taking, in revoking visas of Chinese students with ties to the CCP is understandable. The action is not one without a basis. However, what is also a fact is that Chinese students contribute billions of dollars to the American economy. How the US navigates this fallout is something that will be worth understanding.
The other set of visa revocations is taking place in the US as the Trump 2.0 administration sees elite universities such as Harvard as failing to address anti-Semitism, particularly in the context of pro-Palestinian protests on campuses. While concerns of self-censorship, lack of freedom of expression emerge owing to such visa revocations, fact also remains that owing to normalisation of hatred of Jews, two Israeli staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were killed in Washington D.C. in May this year. The suspect Elias Rodrigues had shouted Free Palestine, after the shooting, which happened outside the Capital Jewish Museum. A normalisation of hatred and anti-Semitism, instead of actual utlisation of education visas is seen as unpalatable by Trump 2.0. Rep. Josh Gottheimer linked the shooting to a 'relentless global campaign to demonise Jews and Israel,' pointing to campus protests as part of this trend.
While there are several concerns around the steps being taken, fact remains that there has been rational basis, linked to American's concerns of sovereignty. What this could lead to, however, is the emergence of educational hubs in other parts of the world. How other countries and regions leverage the opportunities is yet to be seen, but collective global hubs can fill in the vacuum, reshaping higher education.
This article is authored by Sriparna Pathak, professor, China Studies and International Relations, Jindal School of International Affairs, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat.

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