Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, told Newsmax Friday that the recent arrest and detention of Columbia graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil points to the broader national security threat of Chinese nationals being admitted to the United States on student visas.
Khalil was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Saturday, and his green card was revoked by the Trump administration for his role in organizing anti-Israel protests on Columbia University's campus. He is currently detained in Louisiana pending deportation and is fighting his removal from the U.S. in the courts.
"Well, let me start with Mahmoud Khalil," Gill said on "Newsline." "He was a foreigner who was in the United States on a student visa and a green card.
"If you are here and you are on either a student visa or a green card, you are a guest in the United States. We welcome you here, but whenever you're here, you are here on our terms.
"And if he had told us prior to coming into the United States that he was going to be lobbying in support of foreign terrorist organizations, we would have never let him into the country, and we shouldn't have. He is supporting Hamas, an organization that supports the murder and rape of innocent Israeli civilians."
"That is evil, and we have no place in the United States for Hamas supporters. We get to choose who comes into our country and who doesn't, and he has no business being here.
"But more broadly, related to the Chinese nationals issue, I think most people don't realize the scale of the number of CCP [Chinese Communist Party]-connected Chinese nationals who come into the United States every year on student visas: 300,000 Chinese nationals come in every single year on student visas. And remember, the CCP in China is the United States' biggest geopolitical threat in the world right now, and it's not really even close."
Gill is a co-sponsor of the Stop Chinese Communist Prying by Vindicating Intellectual Safeguards in Academia Act (Stop CCP VISAs Act), which was introduced Friday in the House.
"Why are we letting their people come in and have access to American educational institutions to get some of the best education in the world that they can go do whatever, oftentimes the bidding of the CCP with that information? We have had issues with Chinese nationals being arrested who are here on student visas, who have been videotaping secure military related areas," he said.
"This is a huge problem and this is basic common sense. Don't let nationals from our biggest geopolitical threat come into the United States en masse and have access to our educational institutions. It's very basic national security."
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