Tuberville wants to ban students from these countries from studying in US: ‘Funding our own demise’

Former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville. Regions Tradition Pro-Am 2018 at Greystone Country Club. (Joe Songer | [email protected]). al.com

U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., recently announced a bill that would prevent students from Iran, North Korea, and China from studying in the U.S.

“We want to do away with Iran, North Korean, or Chinese nationals getting into this country and learning how to destroy the United States of America and our allies,” he said Wednesday on Fox Business show Mornings with Maria.

He added that the bill, otherwise known as the “Student Visa Integrity Act,” aims to limit the number of international students coming in from all other countries.

The bill will also include provisions “to penalize universities that drop the ball on this,” he told Fox host Maria Bartiromo.

Tommy Tuberville, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, made a campaign stop in Red Bay, Alabama on Wednesday September 30, 2020..

“We are funding our own demise,” he said.

But an analysis of nationwide enrollment and degree data collected by the U.S. Department of Education between 1990 and 2018 found that the opposite might be true.

The study found that increased enrollment of international undergraduates had no significant impact — either positive or negative — on the number of U.S. students enrolled, on average.

However, for every 10 additional bachelor’s degrees, across all majors, awarded to international students, colleges awarded 15 more STEM degrees to American undergraduates.

AP News reports that in the 2023-24 school year, more than 277,000 Chinese students were studying in U.S. universities, or a quarter of the total number of international students, according to an annual report on international students from the Institute of International Education.

Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Tommy Tuberville watches election returns at the Renaissance Hotel in Montgomery.

The number of Chinese students in the U.S., however, has been declining for years.

Last year, China lost its status to India as the top feeder country of international students.

“No policy should target individuals solely on the basis of their national origin,” Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators, told AP News in March, when Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., introduced a similar bill.

“Making international students — the most vetted and tracked nonimmigrants in the United States — a scapegoat for xenophobic and anti-Chinese sentiment is misguided and antithetical to our national interest."

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville speaks at SportsMed in Huntsville.

Yangyang Cheng, research scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, told the publication legislation like Moore’s and Tuberville’s “should be seen as part of a broader effort to restrict academic freedom and hurt higher education in this country, to control what can be taught, which research projects can be pursued, and who have access to the classrooms and laboratories.”

Doug Jones for Alabama's U.S. Senate seat.

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Tommy Tuberville announces his run for governor of Alabama Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Auburn, Alabama.

Watch party for Tommy Tuberville at the Renaissance Hotel in Montgomery. Tuberville greets supporters in the ballroom. Tuberville won run-off against Jeff Sessions..

Tommy Tuberville announces his run for governor of Alabama Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Auburn, Alabama.

Tommy Tuberville announces his run for governor of Alabama Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Auburn, Alabama.

Tommy Tuberville announces his run for governor of Alabama Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Auburn, Alabama.