[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 94 (Thursday, June 7, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3279-S3281]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
China and the Student Visa Program
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I thank my friend from Kansas.
I want to talk a little bit about a hearing I chaired yesterday, a
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration hearing that was called
``Student Visa Integrity: Protecting Educational Opportunity and
National Security.'' The point of the hearing was to raise awareness
about a very serious issue and to hear from the Federal agencies
responsible for our national security, visa policy, and the vetting of
foreign nationals studying in the United States.
We hoped to shed light on policies and procedures that are in place,
what should be in place but is not, and to address what has become a
growing source of concern; that is, foreign countries taking advantage
of their international students studying in the United States and
turning them into intelligence assets or otherwise using them to gain
information that will help other countries grow their economy and their
military in a way that undermines U.S. leadership in both of those
areas.
That issue relates primarily to China's aggressive plan to surpass
the United States on all fronts--militarily, economically, and
technologically--and to do so by whatever means necessary. We already
know that China is perhaps the No. 1 abuser of cyber space to steal
intellectual property and to use that to advance its economy or its
military. They have been very public about their ultimate goal; that
is, to use whatever means they need in order to advance their economy
or their military.
It is important to remember that China is not a democracy like ours.
China is a Communist country guided by a doctrine that does not
recognize the human rights or individual rights that we take for
granted here in the United States and in other democracies.
They made it very clear what they intend to do. For example, in its
``Made in China 2025'' strategy, which is something that has been
published--you can read it yourself--China is accelerating its efforts
to acquire U.S. intellectual property and sensitive research. That is
where our universities in particular come in.
Billions of Federal tax dollars--I think it is $178 billion in the
Omnibus appropriations bill alone--are given to universities to conduct
research to benefit the American people and hopefully all of humankind.
Some of that research is sensitive because it is classified research.
We had, for example, the head of security at the Texas A&M University
System talk about the steps they have taken to protect that from prying
eyes because of the sensitivity of some of that research.
Universities are ground zero in this threat. This past February,
Director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Intelligence
Committee in an open hearing about the security risk posed by certain
Chinese students, visiting scientists, and scholars at American
colleges and universities. His remarks were brief, and because of the
sensitive and classified aspects of some part of what he said, he
couldn't provide the full context and breadth in that open setting, but
what he did say publicly was alarming. He said that the FBI is
``watching warily'' and that ``naivete'' was exacerbating the problem.
What I think he meant by that is that people were simply unaware and
thus unprepared for what was happening. He also made very clear that
the Chinese Government was intent on doing whatever it needed to do--
whether it is placing intelligence officers or other agents of the
Chinese Government on campuses--to get the information they want.
We are fortunate to have the world's top universities and colleges,
and they are known for their open research, which fosters collaboration
and innovation across a broad array of industry sectors and academic
disciplines. One of the crown jewels of our country is our colleges and
universities and the research they do, but our openness is also a
vulnerability when being exploited by other countries for their own
purposes.
What is happening now, Director Wray says, is that foreign actors
have taken advantage of that open environment and are using it to
study, learn, and acquire sensitive information to the detriment of
U.S. national security--and that is what we are primarily talking about
here.
It is not an isolated problem. Director Wray said that the Federal
Bureau of Investigation is actively monitoring universities in all of
its 56 field offices across the country, not just in major cities.
Nearly all students and visiting scholars come for legitimate reasons.
I take that as a given. We are not talking about everybody; we are
talking about the isolated few. But the danger still remains. Most are
here to learn and share our culture and to contribute their talents to
America.
I tend to think that our colleges and universities are the best
elements of our soft power as a nation. When people come here and learn
more about us and where we share values, perhaps even take those values
back to their home country and serve as someone we can talk to and work
with in the future, it promotes world peace, promotes mutual
understanding, and, as I said, I think it is one of the most important
elements of our soft power as a country.
I am not here suggesting that we ought to conflate Chinese Communist
Party influence on all students and academics--far from it. Students
from across the world are certainly welcome; we welcome them with open
arms to come to study at our colleges and universities, and I encourage
them to explore opportunities to do so.
What yesterday's hearing was actually about was not them but a small
subset of people we should be concerned about--security risks, those
who are here to steal and exploit our intellectual property and our
national security and economic advantages, people who don't respect the
rule of law as we do when it comes to intellectual property rights.
As the FBI Director said, we can't be naive. This theft is occurring.
It has been well documented, and we have to take the necessary
preventive measures to ensure that it doesn't continue.
By the way, I have mentioned one country, China, but certainly these
concerns are not limited to China. There are more than 5,000 Russian
students studying in the United States. There are other countries,
including state sponsors of terrorism, like Iran, that have foreign
students here, actively working to steal U.S. technology and bypass
expensive research and development and exploit the student visa program
to gain information that will benefit their countries.
I will just pause for a moment to say that we spend untold amounts of
money in this country--taxpayers' hard-earned money--to research and
develop the newest, most innovative products. That is true in the
military sector and in the nonmilitary sector.
[[Page S3280]]
But when the American taxpayer pays to produce the necessary weapons
and necessary infrastructure to protect us and our security, and other
countries are actively trying to steal it and don't have to pay that
research and development cost, we can see the obvious problem.
Yesterday's hearing exposed a bigger problem, and that is the issue
of competing global visions. Communist China makes no secret of the
fact that Karl Marx is, in effect, their national hero. There was a
week-long celebration in China just last month, which included a
mandatory study session, led by President Xi, of Marx's famous work,
``The Communist Manifesto.'' Events like this show that China, while a
rival, in some ways could be a wolf in sheep's clothing when it comes
to its most aggressive tactics, which I mentioned just a moment ago.
When it tries to present itself as a westernizing economy and a friend
of the global community of nations, China conveniently ignores facts
about its alternative development model and its state-controlled
economy, the fact that it respects no law in pursuit of those policies.
It also disguises and downplays its geopolitical aims--to rewrite the
rules of our world order and recreate them in China's own image.
Whether it is China's increasing belligerence in places like the
South China Sea, its crushing of internal political dissent, its
flagrant human rights violations, or its population controls--like the
one-child policy, which I understand has now been relaxed, but parents
are not free to have all the children they want. It is controlled by
the government; you have to ask the government's permission--China has
repeatedly shown itself as a power-hungry authoritarian country,
willing and able to violate the rights of its own people and dismissive
and contemptuous of international norms and international law.
I don't intend to sound hyperbolic about this, but this is the truth.
So let's not deceive ourselves into believing otherwise. That is what
Director Christopher Wray of the FBI calls naivete. Let's not be naive.
Let's be wary when China tries to just blend in internationally. Its
rosy rhetoric and misleading narrative of cooperation are often
camouflaged for its true and more troubling aims.
We know that there are high-level negotiations between the United
States and the Chinese Government on the issue of trade, and that is a
good thing.
Madam President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no time remaining for the majority.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for one minute
to wrap up.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I joined a number of other Senators, 27
Senators, to talk about ongoing trade negotiations with China. The main
point of the letter was to emphasize that there is no question that
China is actively seeking to surpass the United States economically and
militarily. It is imperative that neither the Federal Government nor
private U.S. companies abet that effort either deliberately or
inadvertently.
When it comes to China, national security isn't just a pretext for
economic protectionism. It should not be. I, like many of my
colleagues, believe strongly in free trade, and we shouldn't use
national security as a pretext for economic protection. But the
national security concerns are indeed real, for example, in the ZTE
matter, which is a subject of some debate--as it should be--and
discussion here in the Congress following the negotiation by Secretary
Ross of a deal that he is proposing.
For those of us who serve on the Intelligence Committee and on the
Armed Services Committee, I assure you, the threat China poses is real,
and the dangers we worry about are already taking effect. Our inaction
could have only negative consequences, and we need to aim to prevent
any future negative consequences for our country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I come to the floor today to speak on
the nomination of Kenneth Marcus to lead the Department of Education's
Office for Civil Rights, a nomination we are going to vote on in just a
few minutes.
First of all, I want to say that I am pleased President Trump and
Secretary DeVos have moved away from their original choice for this
position. I believe the current Acting Assistant Secretary, Candice
Jackson, is unfit for this role and should be removed from her current
position, not just because of the callous, insensitive, and egregious
comments she made regarding sexual assault on college campuses but also
because of the way she has worked to narrow the role of this office and
back away from enforcing transgender students' rights and take away the
tools and resources it has as an office to protect our students and
actually move it away from its core mission. So as I have said before,
I am very glad President Trump and Secretary DeVos decided to nominate
someone else to replace Ms. Jackson.
Secondly, I want to thank this nominee, Kenneth Marcus, for his
service over the years and for his commitment to the goal of halting
discrimination on our college campuses, which is certainly an issue the
OCR will face in light of incidents of hateful rhetoric and violence
occurring on our campuses and in schools.
I respect Mr. Marcus's commitment, but right now, in this
administration, it is not enough. We are now just a bit more than 500
days into President Trump's term, and when it comes to his record and
his rhetoric on civil rights, I haven't been surprised once.
I want to start with his rhetoric. This is a President who kicked off
his campaign by calling Mexicans criminals, who has called for a ban on
all Muslims coming to America, who has openly ridiculed a journalist
with a disability, who has openly demeaned women, who defended White
supremacists rallying in Charlottesville by saying there were ``many
fine people'' among them, who compared immigrants to ``animals'' and
referred to entire countries with an expletive I will not repeat on the
Senate floor. Sadly, I can go on.
It goes beyond his hateful rhetoric. President Trump has tried to
implement that Muslim ban. He has actually rolled back guidance on
enforcing transgender students' rights. He revoked title IX guidance,
which protects women and helps bring perpetrators of sexual assault to
justice, halted investigations into systemic discrimination, and has
pushed his administration to engage in appalling behavior on our
border, dehumanizing immigrants and separating kids from their
families. That list goes on.
I feel very confident in saying that when it comes to civil rights,
when it comes to the rights and safety of women, of people of color, of
LGBTQ people, of people with disabilities, this President has
purposefully fanned the flames of racism, ableism, bigotry, and sexism
in ways that we have not seen in a generation, and anyone who cares
about civil rights in America should be able to point that out.
That is why I was so disappointed that President Trump's nominee to
lead the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights could not
answer one of my questions at his hearing. When I asked Mr. Marcus to
name a single example of something President Trump has said or done
that he disagrees with when it comes to discrimination or women's
rights or civil rights, he couldn't say one--not a single example, and
that is all I was looking for.
He could have talked about how President Trump has stoked hatred and
division of Muslims and Latinos; maybe he disagreed with that. He could
have talked about how President Trump has downplayed hate crimes
against minority communities here in America; maybe he could have said
he disagreed with that. He could have talked about how President Trump
nominated Jeff Sessions to lead his Justice Department, someone with a
record of opposing civil rights protections; maybe he disagreed with
that. He could have talked about how President Trump named someone
hostile to LGBTQ rights to lead the Office for Civil Rights in the
Department of Health and Human Services; maybe he could have disagreed
with that. He could have talked about any of the ways President Trump
has tried to weaken and has actually weakened the office Mr. Marcus is
nominated to lead; maybe he disagreed with that. Unfortunately, in this
administration, there is
[[Page S3281]]
almost no end to the options Mr. Marcus had when I asked him a simple
question, but we do not know where he stands because he wouldn't name a
single thing--not one.
He said: ``I really couldn't say, Senator.'' That was his response to
my question.
There are reasons to oppose this nomination, but for me, this
nonresponse to what should be an easy question was enough for me. We
have to have someone in this position who is not only able to say that
he disagrees with President Trump when it comes to civil rights; we
need someone who is prepared to stand up to him. We need someone who is
not only able to say they stand on the side of civil rights in the face
of constant attacks; we need someone who is actually willing to
disagree with their bosses--President Trump and Secretary DeVos--when
civil rights are being threatened. But Mr. Marcus could not commit to
me that he would do either, and that is something I simply cannot
support.
I will be opposing this nomination, and I encourage my colleagues to
do the same.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. MURRAY. We yield back our time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Marcus
nomination?
Mrs. MURRAY. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr.
Blumenthal), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), and the Senator
from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 46, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 118 Ex.]
YEAS--50
Alexander
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Corker
Cornyn
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Flake
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heller
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
McConnell
Moran
Murkowski
Paul
Perdue
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott
Shelby
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Wicker
Young
NAYS--46
Baldwin
Bennet
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cortez Masto
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Harris
Hassan
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Hirono
Jones
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Manchin
Markey
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Peters
Reed
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--4
Blumenthal
Coons
Duckworth
McCain
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to
reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the President
will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
The Senator from Oklahoma.
____________________