U.S. Rep. Riley Moore, R-WV, filed a bill on Friday to ban Chinese nationals from receiving student visas.
“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. This cannot continue,” he said.
Moore’s Stop Chinese Communist Prying by Vindicating Intellectual Safeguards in Academia Act (Stop CCP VISAs Act) has several cosponsors. The bill would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to prohibit the admission of Chinese nationals as nonimmigrant students, according to the bill language.
He points to the FBI last year charging five Chinese nationals who were in the U.S. on student visas at the University of Michigan after they were caught photographing joint US-Taiwan live fire military exercises at Camp Grayling in August 2023 claiming they were members of the media.
He also points to a Chinese student attending the University of Minnesota who was sentenced to six months in prison last October for taking drone photographs of naval shipbuilding operations at Newport News Shipbuilding in Norfolk, Virginia. Moore also points to a former Illinois Institute of Technology graduate who was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2023 for spying for the Chinese government, acting as an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security and making a material false statement to the U.S. Army when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve.
“Congress needs to end China’s exploitation of our student visa program. It’s time we turn off the spigot and immediately ban all student visas going to Chinese nationals,” he said.
These are but a handful of examples. More than 60 Chinese Communist Party-related cases of espionage and acts of transnational repression were reported in 20 states under the Biden administration, according to a U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security report, The Center Square reported. That’s in addition to 224 reported incidents of Chinese espionage directed at the U.S. between 2000 and 2023, according to the report. Examples include transmission of sensitive military information to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), theft of U.S. trade secrets to benefit the PRC, transnational repression schemes to target PRC dissidents and obstruction of justice.
Other examples include a Department of Justice case from last December involving a Chinese national and lawful permanent resident of California who was arrested for flying a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base and taking photographs. He was arrested for violating national defense airspace prior to boarding a flight to China.
Another DOJ case related to a Chinese national illegally living in the U.S. who was arrested for allegedly shipping weapons and ammunition to North Korea, The Center Square reported.
Another involved a PRC spy arrested in California who worked for a state lawmaker and Chinese operatives arrested in Guam near a U.S. military installation on the same day as a live ballistic missile interception test, The Center Square reported.
Outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray’s parting warning to Americans was that China remains one of the greatest threats to U.S. national security, a warning he consistently issued.
“The greatest long-term threat facing our country, in my view, is represented by the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese government, which I consider to be the defining threat of our generation,” he said, The Center Square reported.
The DOJ says it opens new cases to counter PRC intelligence operations roughly every 12 hours. Of the espionage cases it’s prosecuted since 2018, it says 80% allege the PRC would benefit; 60% of trade secret theft cases are linked to China.
It also lists examples of indictments of Chinese nationals conspiring to and committing economic espionage and theft of trade secrets going back to 2018 under the Trump administration.
PRC threats increased as the greatest number of Chinese nationals illegally entered the U.S. in recorded history under the Biden administration – more than 176,000 nationwide, The Center Square first reported.
