China lashes out against U.S. border policy blocking Chinese students as others call for more safeguards against foreign influence of adversaries

A Chinese foreign official has criticized the United States’ handling of Chinese students at the southern border, claiming that students are being “interrogated, confined, forced into confession, induced and even deported without just cause.”

These comments are targeted at a Trump-era executive order preventing postgraduate students from entering the U.S. if they are linked to the Chinese military. Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said this executive order contradicts President Biden’s agreement with China “to promote and facilitate people-to-people exchanges and the two peoples’ shared desire for more friendly exchanges.”

Despite the security-oriented Trump-era border policy, however, there are no lack of Chinese citizens studying at U.S. colleges and universities. One report counted more than 465,000 graduate students from China studying at U.S. universities in the 2022-2023 academic year.

With immigration from China on the rise, some higher education institutions in states such as Florida are set to increase safeguards against foreign governmental influence and intellectual property theft.

In May 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 846, or the Agreements of Educational Entities with Foreign Entities Act, which blocks state schools from receiving grants or participating in partnerships with universities in seven countries of concern, including China. One implication of this law is that public universities can no longer hire Chinese graduate or postdoctoral students to work as researchers.

“Florida is taking action to stand against the United States’ greatest geopolitical threat – the Chinese Communist Party,” said DeSantis, adding that he was proud to sign this legislation “to stop CCP influence in our education system from grade school to grad school.” 

China’s border policy critiques come amid an ironic recent influx of Chinese immigrants entering the country through Mexico. The U.S. Border Patrol found that, between January and September of 2023, more than 24,000 Chinese immigrants crossed the border without documentation – a number that is 13 times higher than the same time period in 2022. Chinese immigrants are often granted asylum status due to threats of persecution and human rights abuses in China.