During a recent Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) addressed the increasing involvement of "foreign adversaries" in colleges and universities across America.
According to the legislator, countries like China are attempting to exploit higher education through various means, including smuggling and foreign government-linked academic programs
"It's everywhere in our country," said Tuberville. "In the last few years, we closed down just in my state alone several Confucius Institutes—they don't deserve to be anywhere in our country."
Tuberville has introduced multiple pieces of legislation aimed at fighting the spread of foreign influence in schools, including the Safeguarding American Education from Foreign Control Act and the Student Visa Integrity Act.
"The more I learned about the sheer numbers and influence that foreign adversaries have in our education system, it led me to introduce the Student Visa Integrity Act," explained Tuberville. "I introduced it last summer after watching all these anti-American protests on our college campuses. My bill gives the opportunity to get a degree back to Americans who love this country and not students who are adversarial from some of these other countries."
The impact of foreign students and professors on "American kids" was a major point of contention for Tuberville.
"Our economy and our workforce are only as good as our education system. You know, I hear from students all across our state all the time about barriers that they face, whether it's getting into a class because we have too many foreign students in those classes [that are] are already full, or the language barrier, which is absolutely ridiculous when professors can't even speak our language and we're trying to teach American kids," added Tuberville.
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