Even establishment GOP darling Nikki Haley is opposed to President Donald Trump’s endorsement of educating 600,000 Chinese students in American universities.
“It would be a massive mistake to allow 600,000 Chinese students to come into America,” Haley posted on November 14 on her X account. “That would be a huge gift to China and a threat to the United States.”
“This is political opportunism on her part… but she is reading the room correctly with the MAGA base,” said Kevin Lynn, founder of U.S. Tech Workers. “Nikki Haley is the poster child of a political opportunist,” he added.
Haley can read the room because her son spent the last week speaking up for young Americans and Generation X, Lynn said.
“My friend group from high school, all graduated, great degrees from great schools,” recent graduate Nalin Haley told UnHerd for a November 9 article that described the widening gap between older Republicans and Generation Z. The younger Haley added:
It’s been a year and a half, and not one of them has a job — not one. So I’m angry at that, because I’m having to try and help my friends get jobs when their parents got jobs immediately — not just after graduating college, but out of high school.
“He’s saying, we have to look at all immigrants… it’s all about the best interests of the American citizen,” said Lynn. “The Overton window [of mainstream opinion] has shifted on this issue,” he added.
Haley’s Chinese comment comes after Trump triggered a MAGA pushback when he said on November 10 that he would welcome 600,000 Chinese students.
Trump’s seeming endorsement of the 600,000 number on November 10 was likely a verbal flub by a busy president, said Lynn. “He conflated the 1.2 million total [population of foreign] students with 1.2 million Chinese, and said, “We’ll cut it in half to 600,000.” He should have said, “There are 300,000 Chinese [students], we’ll cut that to 150,000… Now they own that statement. They should have walked it back.”
Already the huge flow of Chinese students takes university slots that would otherwise go to Americans. In turn, many of the Chinese students get work permits via the massive Optional Practical Training program, so they use ethnic hiring networks to elbow American graduates out of starter jobs and science research laboratories, said Lynn.
“Between 2010 and 2022, the [work permit] population at the University of Pittsburgh grew from 456 to 1,791,” said Lynn. “These are huge shares, and they’re all getting jobs, but right now American graduates are not getting jobs.”
In recent months, Trump and his administration have pushed for a reduction in the number of foreign students and have added new curbs on the inflow of H-1B workers.
However, Trump’s curbs on foreign students are strongly opposed by the universities, which profit when foreigners pay tuition fees to get “Optional Practical Training” work permits. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has echoed the universities’ complaints, saying “the bottom 15 percent of universities and colleges would go out of business in America” if foreign students were blocked.
Haley’s criticism of Trump is unexpected, in part because Haley has pushed for rules that would allow businesses to set immigration levels. In 2023, Breitbart News reported Haley’s far-right pro-migration policy as she was funded to compete against Trump in the 2024 GOP nomination:
American CEOs should be allowed to import all the foreign workers they say they “need,” Nikki Haley told supporters at a New Hampshire campaign stop.
“For too long, Republican and Democrat presidents dealt with immigration based on a [annual] quota,” she told the roomful of supporters:
“We’ll take X number this year, we’ll take X number next year, the debate is on the number. It’s the wrong way to look at it. We need to do it based on merit. We need to go to our industries and say ‘What do you need that you don’t have?’”
“So think agriculture, think tourism, think tech, we want the talent that’s going to make us better.”
Haley’s reference to “think tech” refers to the many white-collar careers that are now being filled by cheap and compliant foreign graduates instead of available and trained American graduates.
Haley continued: “Then you bring people in that can fill those needs. That way you’re actually emboldening in your economy. Yes, the fabric of America is legal immigration. But let’s get the right ones in that are gonna make America better.” [Emphasis added]
Haley is the daughter of Indian migrants and maintains close ties to India’s migration economy.
