Bush Issues Executive Order to Protect Chinese Students

President Bush on Wednesday issued the executive order he promised last November to protect Chinese students from deportation to their politically troubled homeland.

Bush directed the attorney general to defer until Jan. 1, 1994, any deportation proceedings against Chinese nationals who were in the United States on or after June 5, 1989, and whose visas expire.

Many Chinese students fear reprisals because they supported the pro-democracy movement that was crushed when the government sent in the army against the people in Beijing to end the occupation of Tian An Men Square last spring.

Instead of starting deportation proceedings, the government will notify Chinese nationals when their visas expire, under the order signed by Bush. The Chinese nationals also will have the right to seek jobs in the United States.

A requirement that Chinese nationals must have valid passports will be waived. The government also will furnish documents to “facilitate travel across the borders of other nations and re-entry into the United States” for those whose passports expired.

Bush had announced that he would protect the Chinese students who feared persecution after Beijing’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators last June.

On Nov. 30, he vetoed legislation designed to extend visa protections to the Chinese nationals. But he said then that he would issue an executive order to guarantee that no one would be forced to return to China.