And, apparently there is no need to change a single law.
Here is the story from the Epoch Times(hat tip: Judy):
Trump Administration Signals Tougher Action to Bar Communist Party Members From Immigrating to US
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Friday published a policy alert about banning members of the communist party or any other totalitarian party from getting an immigrant visa.
“In general, unless otherwise exempt, any intending immigrant who is a member or affiliate of the Communist Party or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate), domestic or foreign, is inadmissible to the United States,” USCIS said in a policy alert (pdf).
This is data from 2013, but the article is very useful because it includes this line: “In 2000, 22,000 visas were issued to Chinese nationals in the US; in 2012, that number jumped to 189,000.” Bush was already permitting a huge flow from China when Obama really threw open the flood gates. https://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2013-09/17/content_16975662.htm
People with membership or affiliation with the communist party or other totalitarian parties are inconsistent and incompatible with the Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America, which includes pledging to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States,” the agency said in a statement.
The policy alert didn’t announce any new immigration policy but suggests the Trump administration may take tougher action to enforce related policies.
USCIS explained in its Policy Manual that the policy is based on a series of laws passed by Congress between World War I and the 1950s. Those laws state that any alien who is or has been a member or affiliate of a Communist or any other totalitarian party are “inadmissible” for immigration into the United States.
[….]
As the biggest communist party in the world, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members are expected to be affected most by the new policy.
Of course there are exceptions and people trying to get into the US will lie, but even taking this position signals where this administration is on the spread of communism.
Zhijun Xia, 29, a teaching assistant “originally from China” (and likely still a Chinese national) at the University of Nebraska Omaha, has been charged with sexual assault on a child.
UNO instructor charged with sexual assault; police say he also took photos of 15-year-old girl
A graduate assistant teacher at the University of Nebraska at Omaha has been charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child on allegations that he had sex multiple times with a 15-year-old girl he was tutoring.
Zhijun Xia, $20,000 in cash will spring him. No mention of whether the judge took his passport.
Zhijun Xia, 29, an instructor in UNO’s math department, also has been charged with creating child pornography for taking photos of the girl performing sex acts on him in his UNO office, police say. If convicted, Xia, originally from China, would face a minimum of three years and a maximum of more than 100 years in prison.
According to a warrant for Xia’s arrest, the girl, now 17, went to UNO’s public safety office June 3 and to Omaha police a week later and laid out the following accusations:
The girl went to Xia for tutoring once a month. Xia began texting the girl, then 15, in June 2018.
The two began having sex a month later. The two would meet and engage in sex acts and intercourse in his car at Center Park at 159th and Valley Streets, in the parking lot of a Goodwill retail store near 181st and Q Streets and in Xia’s office on the UNO campus.
Story continueswith more details of their encounters. One wonders what took the girl so long to go to authorities.
Under Nebraska law, it is illegal for anyone 19 or older to have sex with anyone 15 or younger.
If you hadn’t had enough yet of Chinese efforts to destroy America, here is one more way for them to do it using our lax student visa program.
And, get this: This isn’t about their students using our colleges as a springboard for the advancement of China, they are sending students from K-12 here!
Thanks to reader ‘Meanymom’ for spotting this story last week at the Center for Immigration Studies(a story surely lost between Chinese Virus crisis stories and the media obsession with orchestrated mayhem going on in major American cities).
I’ve written a lot about the Chinese buying up food processing plants, but schools!
Chinese Investors Bought K-12 Private Schools in the United States
Helpful bullet points!
~In December 2017, two different Chinese investment firms bought primary schools and at least one secondary school in the United States.
~Foreign nationals can obtain F-1 visas to attend U.S. schools beginning in kindergarten and running through graduate and post-graduate education.
~In 2018, 39,904 Chinese F-1 students were attending secondary schools in the United States.
~The strong demand among Chinese nationals for a U.S. secondary education reportedly comes from their families’ belief that attending an American high school will increase the likelihood that those students will be subsequently accepted to U.S. colleges and universities.
An almost two-and-a half year-old article in China Daily detailed an interesting phenomenon: Chinese investors purchasing private K-12 schools in the United States “in the hopes of cashing in on Chinese students’ quest for admission into a US college.” That report not only highlights an interesting pathway for foreign students to obtain a student visa to attend U.S. colleges and universities, but it also shines a light on the F-1 nonimmigrant student visa program at the primary and secondary level.
The article explained that in December 2017, “Primavera Capital, a China-based private equity firm, paid about $500 million for the Stratford School system, which operates schools throughout California.” That same month, Newopen Group, a “Chinese education company”, bought Florida Preparatory Academy for an undisclosed amount.
Although we generally think of F-1 student visas in the context of colleges and universities, those visas are also available for foreign nationals to study in the United States at a private K-12 school, or a public high school, as well.
Study at a public high school is limited to 12 months for an F-1, and the foreign student must reimburse the costs of tuition (dependents of F-1s, known as “F-2s”, can study wherever they like, including public school), but there is no limit on the amount of time that a foreign student can attend a private K-12 school.
The first step to obtaining that visa is acceptance by a school approved by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP, which is administered by ICE), followed by that school’s issuance of a Form I-20 and the filing of an application by the student at a U.S. embassy or consulate for an F-1 visa.
The list of SEVP certified schoolsruns 272 pages, and includes the middle schools run by Stratford Schools in Sunnyvale, San Jose, and Fremont, as well as Florida Preparatory Academy. Tuition at the three Stratford schools runs $23,510 per year, and there is no boarding option, raising the question of where F-1 middle school students live.
I can shed some light on this as a few years ago a private school near me was trying to stay afloat by bringing in Korean middle school students and the school asked me if I would be willing to board a student. So clearly they tap into a local network of families they see as welcoming.
There are, by my count, at least 200 elementary schools on the list (the level of education offered for many is not entirely clear, and I am basing my count on the number identified as “elementary”) and at least 75 middle schools (again, they are not all identified as such, and there are likely many more).
I’ve posted this news in my ‘Student Visa Fraud’ category, but it isn’t really fraud when our federal government has set up these sweet deals for foreign students and countries that hate us!
Endnote: I don’t know about you, but in our household we are increasingly vigilant while shopping and steering clear of anything made in China. Needless to say, it is a challenging project!
Former Cleveland Clinic doctor accused of sharing research funded by US with Chinese government
CLEVELAND (WJW) — A former Cleveland Clinic research doctor and Case Western Reserve University professor is accused of receiving federal grant money for research in the United States and not disclosing similar funding he received for research in the People’s Republic of China.
He is also accused of sharing research he did in the U.S. with the Chinese government.
Dr. Qing Wang, was arrested Wednesday afternoon at his home in Shaker Heights. He is being charged with false claims and wire fraud related to more than $3.6 million in grant funding that he and his research group at the Cleveland Clinic received from the National Institutes of Health.
According to a federal complaint, Dr. Wang “knowingly failed to disclose to NIH that he held an affiliation and the position of Dean of the College of Life Sciences and Technology at the Huazhong University of Sciences and Technology” in China. It alleges that he received $3 million in grants from the Chinese government for some of the same scientific research that was funded by the NIH grant, but never disclosed that information.
“Why should another country and another group of citizens benefit from information that we funded here in the United States?” said Jeffrey Fortunato, an assistant special-agent-in-charge with the Cleveland Division of the FBI.
Dr. Wang is also accused of participating in a Chinese government program that recruited individuals with access to or knowledge of foreign technology and intellectual property.
The story is seeping out into the media even though it’s hard for any news to break through with the impeachment show going on in the Senate at the moment.
Another news story captivating the public is the Coronavirus newscoming out of China and what a funny coincidence that the virus and the Harvard professor’s alleged secretive dealings both involve Wuhan, China. I am not implying a connection!
I’ll bet the vast majority of Americans (including me) never heard of Wuhan before this past week.
Here is one of many stories, this one at The Economistwith this intriguing photo and the headline:
An American chemist is suspected of illegal dealings with China
Here are the opening paragraphs, but alas a subscription is required to read more. We can fix that because all the news you need to know is in a press release from the US Justice Department(h/t: Cathy):
In 2013 Charles Lieber, a pioneer of nanoscience who is now the chairman of Harvard University’s chemistry department, visited the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT), in China, to celebrate the founding of a lab he was credited by that university with helping to establish and oversee: the WUT-Harvard Joint Nano Key Laboratory. It was a remarkable coup. WUT is an institution of little renown. Harvard is generally regarded as the top of the academic tree. And Dr Lieber, whose research has since become part of Elon Musk’s ambitious scheme to supercharge the human brain with nanotechnology, has been seen as a potential Nobel laureate.
Harvard’s officials had not, however, approved the laboratory and did not know about it until early 2015, according to the us Department of Justice. Nor did they know that while conducting his research with grants from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr Lieber was, according to federal authorities, also being paid up to $50,000 a month by WUT, plus at least $150,000 in “living expenses”, as a prized recruit in China’s Thousand Talents programme to bring foreign scientists, and return Chinese expatriates, to that country’s research laboratories.
See the releasefor more details and to learn about the Chinese nationals also charged with various crimes. The DOJ says the three cases involve China, but are unrelated. However, they were all conducted as part of President Trump’s Department of Justice China Initiative described in the release.
Zaosong Zheng
Yanqing Ye, 29, a Chinese national, was charged in an indictment today with one count each of visa fraud, making false statements, acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy. Ye is currently in China.
Zaosong Zheng, 30, a Chinese national, was arrested on Dec. 10, 2019, at Boston’s Logan International Airport and charged by criminal complaint with attempting to smuggle 21 vials of biological research to China. On Jan. 21, 2020, Zheng was indicted on one count of smuggling goods from the United States and one count of making false, fictitious or fraudulent statements. He has been detained since Dec. 30, 2019.
[….]
These case are part of the Department of Justice’s China Initiative, which reflects the strategic priority of countering Chinese national security threats and reinforces the President’s overall national security strategy. In addition to identifying and prosecuting those engaged in trade secret theft, hacking and economic espionage, the initiative will increase efforts to protect our critical infrastructure against external threats including foreign direct investment, supply chain threats and the foreign agents seeking to influence the American public and policymakers without proper registration.
An almost two-and-a half year-old article in China Daily detailed an interesting phenomenon: Chinese investors purchasing private K-12 schools in the United States “in the hopes of cashing in on Chinese students’ quest for admission into a US college.” That report not only highlights an interesting pathway for foreign students to obtain a student visa to attend U.S. colleges and universities, but it also shines a light on the F-1 nonimmigrant student visa program at the primary and secondary level.
See