(The Center Square) – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he’s ready to see visas for students from China get pulled in response to President Donald Trump’s speech Thursday night.
During his address, Trump said China illegally acquired millions of Americans’ voter files.
The Trump administration released previously classified U.S. Intelligence Community Assessments and other reports the president said demonstrated this fact.
“They show that, over a period of years starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s elicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files,” Trump said. “That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and to engage in other nefarious activities, which is exactly what was happening.”
On social media, DeSantis wrote, “Time to yank CCP student visas, which are hundreds of thousands a year.”
American universities enrolled 277,000 students from China during the 2023-24 school year, according to the Migration Policy Institute. That’s a drop from 373,000 enrolled in 2019-20.
In Florida, there were more than 5,200 Chinese students enrolled across the state in 2022, according to data from the Florida College Access Network. Overall, Florida has more than 30,000 international students from over 200 countries enrolled at its campuses.
At Florida State University for example, China is one of the top countries of origin for its approximately 2,500 international students.
It’s not the first time concerns have been raised on whether Chinese students should be permitted to study in the U.S., particularly those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Last year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated that the administration would be revoking visas for people from China but that was followed by Trump saying Chinese students could stay.
In 2024, two Chinese students at Florida International University and a professor at the University of Florida filed a lawsuit against a law DeSantis signed. They said the legislation unfairly restricted international students from multiple countries including China.
Senate Bill 846 was enacted in 2023 and restricted public colleges and universities from receiving grants, gifts or entering into academic partnerships with foreign countries of concern including China, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia and North Korea.
Cofounder of The Chinese American Legal Defense Alliance Clay Zhu called the law “xenophobic” and said it would encourage “racial bias.”
While Florida has taken one of the strongest approaches, other states have similar laws on the books. Georgia requires public universities to report foreign funding and partnerships and other states have mandatory disclosure including Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana and Tennessee.