FOREIGN STUDENTS AND AMERICA'S NATIONAL SECURITY

Video and Report: Foreign Student Policies Undercutting National Security

Washington, D.C. (August 26, 2019) – Transcript and video is now available of the Center for Immigration Studies’ panel discussion centered around a new Center report, highlighting the ongoing national security risks the United States confronts as a result of current policies regarding international students and scholars. The problems related to these policies are intensified by the numbers; a five-year trend reflects over two million admissions each year in the three relevant visa categories (F-1 students, M-1 vocational students, and J-1 exchange visitors). Dan Cadman, a Center fellow and author of the report, stressed that hundreds of thousands of these foreign students come from countries that are known to be home to active terrorist movements, or have hostile and aggressive intelligence agencies actively engaged in collection of sensitive U.S. data, or have established official stumbling blocks to the repatriation of their citizens under final orders of removal. Foreign students enter U.S. academic institutions from countries like North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Yemen. David North, a Center fellow, highlighted the Optional Practical Training (OPT) – a program that incentivizes foreign students to extend their stay in the U.S. and provides corporations a financial incentive to hire the foreign graduates, not the American graduates, of U.S. schools. OPT  “takes billions of dollars away from Social Security and Medicare … and simultaneously deny about a third of a million Americans a job.” Jessica Vaughan, the Center’s director of policy studies, voiced concern about the overstay rate of foreign students - double the rate of other nonimmigrants in the country. “We see very large numbers from countries of concern for espionage like China and Iran, and countries of national security concern like Saudi Arabia.” China had the highest number of visa overstays in the student and exchange visitor category in 2018 with 13,000 people overstaying their visa. Report: U.S. Foreign Student and Exchange Visitor Policies Undercut National Security Video: https://cis.org/Video/Panel-Video-Foreign-Students-and-National-Security Transcript: https://cis.org/Transcript/Panel-Foreign-Students-and-National-Security Cadman said, "How the U.S. handles its massive foreign student population is both unacceptable and, in the long run, a danger to our nation's security and competitive edge. There is a general lack of oversight of the institutions authorized to accept foreign students and scholars, many of them seduced by the lure of money. This lack of oversight is also true regarding the students themselves.” The report stresses the dangers of temporary visa holders earning 37 percent of the country's doctorate degrees in science and engineering and Chinese nationals earning 25 percent of all U.S. STEM degrees. Mr. Cadman recommends that the U.S.: encourage native-born STEM students; limit the number of student and research visas granted; limit the exposure of foreign students and research scholars to sensitive information and courses of study; re-invigorate nonimmigrant student and scholar control and enforcement programs; and change the culture at Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP is the agency within ICE that oversees the foreign student program) and hold approved institutions to their commitments.