The U.S. issued nearly 34,000 F1 visas in June for Chinese students, about the same level as 2019. It’s not yet clear if the total number of Chinese students for the fall semester will be higher or lower than before the pandemic.
With the Trump administration bearing down on Chinese students, many feel helplessly caught in the crosshairs of a high-level U.S.-China political spat. But not all of them are passively accepting their fate.
The Trump administration says that it has cancelled more than 1,000 visas of Chinese students since a May 29 proclamation that put graduate students connected to China’s “military-civil fusion” in the crosshairs.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said that if schools move to online-only education in the fall, then student visas could be cancelled and deportations would ensue. Chinese students are the largest group affected.