‘It’s wild’: State Department, others struggle to comprehend Chinese visa plan

People both inside and outside the State Department were struggling Thursday to understand how a new plan to revoke Chinese students’ visas will work — and whether it will end up being a blanket ban on Chinese nationals studying in the United States.

While the administration could begin voiding visas imminently, a State Department official familiar with consular issues, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said embassies had yet to receive official instructions on how to implement the plan, which also includes revising visa criteria to increase scrutiny of future applicants from China and Hong Kong.

Reviewing all Chinese student visas could be a daunting task for the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. There were around 277,000 Chinese students in the United States during the 2023 to 2024 school term, government data shows.