"The practice of foreign students studying in the United States for degrees in sensitive subjects has long been a concern of Congress. For example, Congress has prohibited foreign students from Iran from studying in preparation for a career in Iran’s energy sector, nuclear science, nuclear engineering, and related fields.

Since that prohibition, the foreign student program has grown dramatically, with over 1.5 million foreign students in the United States as of 2023. As global political concerns have shifted, and new sensitive fields of study have emerged, it stands to reason that Congress may want to consider barring foreign students from additional nations from studying and training in a wider range of fields.

For example, a recent report from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce found "that due to a lack of legal guardrails around federally funded research, hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. federal research funding over the last decade have contributed” to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) "strategic goals by helping the PRC achieve advancements in dual-use, critical, and emerging technologies like hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, fourth-generation nuclear weapons technology, and semiconductor technology” and that the PRC’s strategy includes acquiring "U.S. technology and expertise through joint institutes between U.S. research universities” and PRC entities.

Amid the shift in global politics and emerging technologies, DHS has developed a controversial program that allows foreign students to train in their field of study for up to six years beyond graduation. This training consists of employment at a workplace that may, itself, be a sensitive location, such as a university research lab, a tech-focused company, or a military-related institution, for example. Over half a million foreign students from across the globe are currently employed through DHS’s Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, many of whom are training in a wide variety of sensitive fields, including nuclear engineering, undersea warfare, cyber warfare, nanotechnology, and others listed within this report.

The entire OPT program, which has grown to become one of America’s largest foreign-worker programs, is managed entirely by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and has no oversight from other parts of the government, such as the Department of Labor or the Department of Commerce, which generally have a significant role to play in congressionally created foreign-worker programs. The result is that many national security threats that might otherwise be detected by various parts of the government are likely going unaddressed."

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