Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) introduced a bill to ban immigration from countries with laws requiring their citizens to cooperate with foreign intelligence services.
Senator Scott claimed the bill is motivated by reports that countries, like China, target the US through pernicious intelligence gathering efforts.
“Communist China”, said Scott, “is not just our competitor, they are our enemy, and we cannot afford to be naïve about the regime’s intentions when our national security is at risk.”
New CCP national security laws compel Chinese citizens and businesses to share information, including client data, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Scott explained the CCP is “actively waging war with campaigns of espionage, theft, and influence operations against the United States in an effort to destroy our way of life at any cost.”
If Scott’s bill passes, Chinese citizens would be barred from entering the US and potentially deported.
Research from the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) explains the extent to which the CCP’s recent national security laws compel citizens and businesses to cooperate with intelligence gathering operations.
According to the CNA, which is a US investigative center, Chinese laws require its citizens and companies to comply with the CCP’s broadly defined ‘national security’ initiatives.
Such initiatives include demanding that Chinese individuals and businesses share all information about their foreign clients with the CCP.
“Any Chinese citizen on U.S. soil is compelled to spy on us,” claimed Scott.
The CCP has denied wrongdoing and defended its national security laws.
US lawmakers, however, are not amused.
Scott, for example, has led sundry efforts to counter Chinese influence inside the US.
One significant bill Scott recently introduced would limit the number of foreign student visas to prioritize native-born American students and limit the influx of Chinese students.
Senator Scott argued that the US’s foreign adversaries have manipulated America’s generous foreign student visa program to undermine the US’s national security.
