Chinese Students Interrogated, Visas Canceled and Sent Back to China by US Border Officers
Recently, many Chinese students were interrogated by U.S. border law enforcement officers when they entered the country from Washington Dulles International Airport, had their visas canceled and were sent back to their country.
On January 29, the Chinese Embassy in the United States released news that these international students were inspected when they returned to the United States after going on vacation, traveling to a third country, or attending a conference, including interrogating the electronic devices they carried. The Chinese Embassy did not disclose the number of Chinese students under interrogation or the specific circumstances.
Previously, Chinese media reported on January 4 that dozens of Chinese students were interrogated and even deported when they entered the United States. One of the Chinese students, T, is a doctoral student at Yale University. He returned to the United States from China on December 19, 2023, and entered the country at Dulles Airport near Washington. After asking about T’s major, airport customs took him to the interrogation room for eight hours. They asked him whether he had received scholarships during his undergraduate studies, whether he had been funded by the Chinese Communist Party authorities, etc., and also checked his portable electronic devices. Later, Mr. T was informed that the F-1 visa he held to study abroad had been canceled, and he would not be allowed to enter the United States for 5 years.
Another Chinese student who was interrogated, M, went to the National Cancer Center of the National Institutes of Health in 2022 to conduct research and was interrogated when he entered the country from Dulles Airport on November 22, 2023. M was asked whether the current research content was funded by the Chinese Communist Party authorities to study abroad and whether the scientific research plan was related to the Chinese Communist Party authorities, the military, and key laboratories. U.S. intelligence agencies have been warning for years that Chinese students affiliated with the Chinese military pose a national security risk to the United States.
In May 2020, then-President Trump issued Executive Order No. 10043, prohibiting Chinese students and scholars related to the Chinese Communist Party’s military and holding F visas (student visas) and J visas (visiting scholar visas) from entering the country. After Biden came to power, although he resumed issuing visas to Chinese students, he also checked their mobile phones and deported those with problems.