The United States Vice President, JD Vance, has proposed that foreign students holding student visas could face deportation if their stay is determined to be against the country’s interests.
In an interview with Fox News on Thursday night, Vance explained that this initiative is part of a broader strategy under the Trump administration to intensify deportation efforts.
Vance emphasized that while some might view this as a free speech issue, it is, in fact, about national security and determining who should be allowed to join American society. He clarified that both the Secretary of State and the President have the authority to decide whether a foreign student should remain in the US, and if found without legal grounds to stay, deportation would follow.
While he did not specify an exact number, Vance acknowledged that deportations could increase.
“This isn’t fundamentally about free speech, it’s about national security and, more importantly, about who we, as an American public, decide gets to join our national community,” Vance stated. “If the Secretary of State and the President decide that someone should not be in the country and has no legal right to stay, deportation will happen. I think we will certainly see more people deported on student visas if we determine they are not in the best interest of the United States.”
The Vice President also raised concerns about foreign students taking spots at prestigious universities, arguing that they sometimes displace qualified American students. He particularly pointed to wealthy foreign students, especially from countries like China, who are able to pay full tuition, thereby occupying spaces that could otherwise go to American students, especially those from middle-class backgrounds.
“A lot of these foreign students, most of them, pay full tuition. So, you often have a situation at elite universities, like Columbia or Harvard, where a well-qualified middle-class American student from the heartland doesn’t get a spot because a Chinese oligarch, paying $100,000 a year, takes that space,” Vance said.
“This is not just bad for national security but also detrimental to the American dream for many kids who dream of going to these universities but can’t because their spot is occupied by a foreign student,” he added.
The debate surrounding foreign students comes amid a rise in international enrollments in the United States, particularly from countries like Nigeria. In 2023, Nigeria saw a record number of students enrolling, with 20,029 Nigerian students in the US as of the 2023/2024 academic year, making them the seventh-largest group of international students in the country.
