Nick Schifrin:
To discuss these visa revocations and attempted deportations and their link to foreign policy, we get two views.
Chad Wolf is the executive vice president of the America First Policy Institute and the former acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security during the first Trump administration. And Richard Haass is the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the weekly Substack Home & Away.
Richard Haass, Chad Wolf, thank you very much. Welcome to the “News Hour.”
Richard Haass, let me start with you.
Do you believe it is in the U.S. foreign policy interest to revoke these visas and possibly deport these student activists?
Richard Haass, President Emeritus, Council on Foreign Relations: As a rule, no.
Foreign students, we have about a million of them in the country right now. They contribute to the economy if they stay here. There’s a lot of Fortune 100 companies that began because of international students. If they become elites in their country, then we have pro-American elites. They also contribute financially to American colleges and universities. They’re central to the business model.
So I think this is a win-win-win situation. And I think we interfere with this program really at our peril. And coming back to what mar was saying, if American foreign policy is that fragile that the comments of a couple of kids on campuses is going to somehow jeopardize American foreign policy, then we have got much bigger problems than a few international students.
Last I checked, we won the Cold War, we won the Gulf War, and we have had a lot of other accomplishments in the world, despite the fact that we have had some critical voices in international students. So let’s not overreact to what is a really, really small issue.
