US educators cry foul at visa restrictions targeting Chinese students

Last month, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration held a hearing to announce the new Trump administration directives but allowed no voice of dissention.

Committee Chair Senator John Cornyn of Texas refused to allow Federal Congresswoman Judy Chu of California to speak at the hearing against the visa restrictions.

Chu, whose parents were born in China's Guangdong province, is the first Chinese-American woman elected to the Congress in 2009, and represents California's 27th district that includes Los Angeles.

"I want to speak out against some potentially dangerous generalizations that would paint all Chinese students and scholars as spies for China," Chu warned in a statement.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the ranking Democrat on the panel, said it was the first time in more than 20 years that the opposition voice was intentionally silenced.

Since 2006, Robert Mendoza has been the headmaster at the nationally acclaimed Fairmont Private Schools in Orange County, where enrollment is close to 2,000. Ninety-one percent students go to attend a top 100 US university.

"I think that some people are uninformed about what are the true intentions of students and their families," Mendoza told Xinhua.

At the Fairmont Preparatory Academy, grades 9-12, 60 percent of the students are international, and 40 percent of them are Chinese, according to Mendoza.

"There is such an awesome responsibility for us to make them feel welcome," he said, adding he has met hundreds of Chinese parents and thousands of Chinese students over the years.

"When you meet them and look them in the eye and see what is at stake (for) them to have their children here in America, then you might feel differently," he said.

"They're not Chinese, they're parents, and the kids are not Chinese students, they're students," Mendoza said.