Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn are teaming up to end China’s exploitation of the U.S. migration system.

John Binder of Breitbart News reported that “In the wake of the Chinese coronavirus crisis, Cotton and Blackburn — as well as Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN) in the House — have filed legislation called the SECURE CAMPUS Act that ends the China-to-United States pipeline of Chinese nationals receiving student visas for STEM fields.”

“The Chinese Communist Party has long used American universities to conduct espionage on the United States,” Cotton declared in a statement. “What’s worse is that their efforts exploit gaps in current law. It’s time for that to end.”

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Binder noted what Cotton and Blackburn’s plan would do:

• Ban Chinese nationals from receiving student visas to the U.S. for STEM fields
• Ban Chinese nationals from working on federal R&D grants in STEM fields
• Require universities, labs, and research institutes recieving federal taxpayer money to confirm that they will not knowingly employ participants in China’s foreign talent recruitment programs
• Require China’s foreign talent recruitment program participants to register as foreign agents
• Require the State Department to publish a list of China’s foreign talent recruitment programs

Blackburn said the following in a statement:

Beijing exploits student and research visas to steal science, technology, engineering, and manufacturing secrets from U.S. academic and research institutions. We’ve fed China’s innovation drought with American ingenuity and taxpayer dollars for too long; it’s time to secure the U.S. research enterprise against [China’s] economic espionage.

Breitbart News previously noted that China greatly benefits from the U.S.’s legal migration system.

Binder offered some sobering numbers about mass Chinese legal migration:

From 2008 to 2018, more than 825,000 Chinese nationals arrived in the U.S. on green cards — an immigration status that provides them with permanent residency, a pathway to American citizenship, and eventually the ability to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country through the process known as “chain migration.”

In any given year, there are approximately 500,000 Chinese students in America, which is more than any other country. They usually take spots in university classrooms and work to receive Optional Practical Training (OPT) in order to displace entry-level white-collar workers.

Binder concluded that “In Fiscal Year 2019, alone, Chinese nationals secured about 170,000 F, J, and M visas to arrive in the U.S. as students — more than any other country in the world.”

China’s exploitation of America’s legal migration is in line with its unconventional strategies to expand its influence abroad.

It’s banking on not having to fire a shot in its quest to become the world’s pre-imminent superpower.  By infiltrating countries, conducting espionage, buying up property, and dispossessing native workers, China is doing everything it takes to gain an advantage against the West and its allies.

In doing so, it can establish a formal foothold in the U.S. and other countries, whereby it can exercise soft power.