Today, I submitted testimony to the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs.
Chairman Diaz-Balart, Ranking Member Frankel, and members of the Subcommittee:
My name is Dan Lips. I am a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, a think tank focused on promoting innovation, strengthening governance, and advancing national security. A focus of my research has been addressing malign foreign influence, expanding freedom, and promoting American ideas and values.
I write to respectfully recommend that the Subcommittee include report language directing the State Department to publish a report to the Appropriations Committees evaluating the potential for using a civics-based screening (such as a modified U.S. naturalization civics exam) as part of the vetting process for student visas and exchange visitor visas. The purpose of this potential civics-based screening would be to encourage foreign students who wish to study in or travel to America to demonstrate that they have a basic understanding about the United States, the Constitution, and American values. Educating young foreigners around the world about the United States could become a pillar of 21st century public diplomacy and promote American interests.
As background, American colleges and universities host more than one million students annually. Approximately 300,000 foreigners travel to the United States through exchange visitor programs. These programs provide economic benefits to the United States, the American people, and the many foreign students and visitors who come to the United States. However, today it is no longer clear whether these programs are fulfilling their original purpose: to promote American ideas and values and to advance U.S. interests.
Congress created foreign student and academic exchange programs for the purpose of winning hearts and minds and promoting American values during the Cold War. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 established an educational exchange service in part to promote “a better understanding of the United States in other countries and to increase mutual understanding.” Historian and former foreign service officer Yale Richmond credited foreign exchange programs as a factor that drove internal change within the former Soviet Union. The more than 50,000 Soviet citizens who traveled to the United States through academic and cultural exchange programs were exposed to American ideas and “prepared the way for Gorbachev’s glasnost, perestroika, and the end of the Cold War,” Richmond argued. In this way, academic and cultural exchange programs have been a pillar of American public diplomacy.
However, today, the ideological purpose of the exchange program is unclear amid widespread concerns about the leadership and campus culture of American colleges and universities. For example, a 2024 House Committee on Education and the Workforce report detailed a comprehensive investigation of antisemitism on American campuses. “Information obtained by the Committee reveals a stunning lack of accountability by university leaders for students engaging in antisemitic harassment, assault, trespass, and destruction of school property,” the report concluded. Congressional investigations have also exposed alarming problems related to foreign adversaries, and particularly the People’s Republic of China, exploiting vulnerabilities within American higher education and the research enterprise. Bipartisan Senate investigations exposed how the PRC has exploited the openness of American higher education to promote Chinese propaganda and to compromise the American research enterprise. A 2024 House report, CCP on the Quad, detailed extensive relationships between U.S. government-funded research and researchers at American postsecondary institutions.
Adding to these concerns about foreign influence and mismanagement on college campuses is past evidence of federal agencies’ challenges managing student visa programs and enforcing laws to curb foreign influence on college campuses. In 2019, the Government Accountability Office warned that the student visa program faced significant fraud risks, including that Immigration and Customs Enforcement struggles to review and recertify schools in a timely manner. In 2014, GAO reported that DHS was mismanaging the Optional Practical Training program, which allows foreign students to work in the United States temporarily. For decades, the federal government failed to conduct effective oversight and enforcement of Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires colleges and universities to disclose foreign payments.
Today, Congress should question whether American colleges and universities are effective venues for educating foreign students about American values and governance. For example, an American Council of Trustees and Alumni survey found that less than a quarter of American colleges and universities require students to take a U.S. government or history course.
Rather than relying on American colleges and universities (and exchange visitor hosts) to educate foreign students and visitors about the United States and to promote American values, Congress and the State Department could consider a new approach: requiring foreign students to learn about the United States before they come to America. Specifically, the United States could establish a requirement that people who wish to study at American colleges and universities or participate in an exchange visitor program demonstrate a basic understanding of the United States, the Constitution, and American values before obtaining a visa. For example, the U.S. government could require foreign students or exchange visitors who are applying for visas to first pass a modified version of the U.S. citizenship exam to demonstrate a basic understanding of civics. Foreign students and exchange visitors already must take certain steps to qualify for a visa, such as in some cases demonstrating English proficiency. Expanding the current application processes to require students to demonstrate a basic understanding of American civics would be an extension of current vetting and would use the main leverage point that the U.S. government has in the student and exchange visitor visa approval process.
As an interim step, the Subcommittee could direct the State Department to study the feasibility of including a basic screen of American civics knowledge as part of the process of obtaining F:1, M:1, and J:1 visas. To that end, I respectfully recommend the following report language:
The Committee directs the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, to submit a report to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate not later than 180 days after the enactment of this Act evaluating the feasibility of incorporating a modified United States naturalization civics examination into the vetting process for applicants for F–1 and M-1 student visas and J–1 exchange visitor visas.
The report shall include: 1) An assessment of how a civics-based screening requirement would be consistent with the purposes of the foreign student and exchange visitor programs under the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 and the Smith–Mundt Act of 1948, 2) Options for adapting the naturalization civics examination for nonimmigrant visa applicants, including subject matter, format, passing standards, and methods of administration, as well as whether different approaches may be appropriate for different visa categories, and 3) Recommendations for approaches to implementation, such as the establishment of a pilot project for applicants from specific countries or for specific visa categories, and ideas for how existing State Department resources and platforms could provide study materials in American civics to help foreign students prepare for the screening.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this written testimony.
