Yellowhammer Times

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) appeared on Fox Business’s "Mornings with Maria" to discuss his proposed Student Visa Integrity Act, which would restrict students from countries considered adversarial—specifically China, Iran, and Afghanistan—from enrolling in American colleges and universities.

During the interview, host Maria Bartiromo referenced an Open Doors report that found over 1.1 million international students were enrolled at U.S. universities during the 2023-2024 academic year, a 6.6% increase from the previous year. She raised concerns about potential abuses of the student visa process by foreign nationals from adversarial countries.

Tuberville explained the motivation behind his bill: “Maria, it’s out of control. My act is [the] Student [Visa Integrity] Act, and all that does is we keep [an] eye on China, Iran.

I was at a graduation ceremony the other day. […] 40 Chinese nationals got their degrees in engineering and cyber. We are funding our own demise. And so, [there are] 1 or 2 million foreign nationals in our universities. It’s growing every day. Our enrollment is actually dropping. Americans are not going to universities anymore, they can’t get in. And so we have to do something about this.

In ’93, Maria, what happened is the World Trade Center bombing happened. The visa program […] allowed a foreign national to stay in. […] We monitored that from a federal government standpoint. We started what we call the [Student and Exchange Visitor Information System] to monitor foreign nationals – we dropped the ball on that. Now we have [nearly] 15% Iranians that overstay their visa, 20% Afghan nationals that overstay their visa.

We have huge problems. We have to monitor that. So, that’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to help President Trump. I’m starting this act to redo this mandate that the Congress put on back in ‘93 and mandated in 2003 and saying ‘Listen, no more Iranian or Chinese nationals in our universities.’ We have to watch funding and dealings to our universities. They have to report that. We have to do everything we possibly can to penalize universities that drop the ball on this agenda, because if we don’t do that, we are not going to educate our kids, and we’re going to fund our own demise.”

Bartiromo asked whether American universities were aware of these alleged abuses of student visas by adversarial governments and questioned why more lawmakers were not addressing the issue.

Tuberville responded: “Well, they don’t want to upset the applecart with their base, and their base is really for any foreign national coming here, educating, staying past their visas, possibly getting them to vote. But, Maria, in the Northeast, 40-70% of the universities’ enrollment […] is foreign nationals. This is ridiculous. It’s getting out of control, and what’s happening, they don’t have to pay taxes. They’re non-profit. And so, we have to do something about this. We gotta wake up and smell the roses here because we are funding the end of our country. Because all these Chinese come over—now, they’ll leave their visa on time and they’ll go back home—but they take everything they possibly can with them in terms of everything that they learned.”

Co-host Todd Piro asked if Tuberville’s bill would also prioritize admission for American students at U.S institutions.

Tuberville said: “You’re exactly right, Todd. They are turned down. They apply but they can’t get in because there’s no slots for them because [of] all the foreign nationals coming in. We’ll have that in our bill; by the way—that’s already in there.

We want to make sure we limit the number that comes in but we surely want to limit our adversaries. We want to do away with Iran, North Koreans or Chinese nationals getting into this country and learning how to destroy the United States of America and our allies.”

When asked about whether Democratic colleagues understood threats posed by China or Iran regarding student visas or other issues:

Tuberville stated: “Oh sure—they understand it—they just don’t wanna believe it...their base is people that really like foreign nationals...They couldn’t care less about American students...their base is on far left...You’re seeing what’s happening in these big cities right now...”

The conversation also covered economic policy as Bartiromo noted recent Federal Reserve decisions on interest rates and referenced Tuberville's calls for removing Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Tuberville said: “Well Jerome Powell’s playing ‘god’ is what he’s doing...He should have raised rates back in 2020–2021.He was late...Then he turned around and dropped rates right before election last year...he was a political hack...He is not consistent…he’s hurting our economy…hope soon he’s gone.”

When asked who should replace Powell:

Tuberville replied: “Well there’s some good people working for President Trump right now…I know all of them…Again just an American economist…do what’s right for American people.”

Senator Tuberville represents Alabama as a member of several Senate committees including Armed Services; Agriculture; Veterans’ Affairs; HELP; and Aging.