In a rare meeting between the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the academic community on Thursday, members of the FBI sought to reassure researchers of Asian descent that their concerns over discrimination are being heard. The 6 June public forum, held at Rice University in Houston, Texas, was lauded by participants as an important step in building trust, although several said that much more work remains to be done.

China Initiative’s shadow looms large for US scientists

“We want you to feel comfortable. That’s why we’re here,” said Douglas Williams, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Houston field office, which, among other things, investigates hate crimes based on ethnicity. “More importantly, we want you to trust us, so that when something does happen in this community, which I believe it does, that you feel comfortable calling us and that we can investigate it.”

The two-hour session — sponsored by organizations including the Asian Pacific American Justice Task Force, based in McLean, Virginia — was held in response to increasing fears in the past few years among students and researchers of Asian descent working in the United States. One cause is the China Initiative, a programme launched in 2018 by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) under former president Donald Trump’s administration. It aimed to curb the theft of US scientific research by the Chinese government, and saw a number of scientists of Chinese descent arrested by the FBI and swept into criminal court. Most were eventually acquitted or had their cases dropped. The DoJ discontinued the initiative in 2022, acknowledging that the cases created a perception of racial bias.

But scrutiny of Chinese-born scholars by the US government seems to have continued. In April, the Chinese embassy in Washington DC said that, since July 2021, at least 70 Chinese students with valid documents have been turned away at US airports. David Donatti, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, a non-profit organization headquartered in Houston, said at the forum that those students, some of whom were fifth-year PhD students working in the United States and ready to defend their dissertations, were interrogated and deported without explanation. Many face five-year bans on entry to the country.

Feeling unwelcome

Gisela Perez Kusakawa, executive director of the Asian-American Scholar Forum, a non-profit organization based in New York City, said that ending the China Initiative was a crucial step towards de-escalating tensions and stamping down the idea that Asian scholars are criminals — but it is only one step. “There is still significant progress that needs to be made to ensure that the US is a welcoming environment that can attract and retain the best and brightest talents,” she said.

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Between December 2021 and March 2022, her group conducted a survey of more than 1,300 US faculty members of Chinese descent: 89% said they wanted to contribute to US leadership in science, but 42% were afraid to conduct their research, and around half said that fear led them to avoid applying for federal grants. About 61%, particularly younger researchers, felt pressure to leave the country.

FBI representatives said that, although their charge includes protecting the United States from foreign threats, such as technological espionage, it also includes protecting the civil rights of everyone in the country. That applies to Chinese citizens working in the United States, said Kelly Choi, supervisory special agent at the FBI’s Houston field office. However, she pointed out that the protection offered would be against any attempt by the Chinese government to harass or silence those individuals.

Although the FBI investigates crime, it is not in charge of screening people coming into the country. That responsibility falls under the purview of the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), an arm of the Department of Homeland Security (the FBI is part of the DoJ). Steven Pei, an electrical engineer at the University of Houston in Texas, who moderated the forum, told Nature that although the CBP was invited to the panel, it declined to participate. The CBP did not respond to Nature’s request for comment before this story published.

The Department of Homeland Security created an Academic Partnership Council last year, whose members include the presidents of several US universities and higher-education groups. The council is tasked with making recommendations to the department about issues involving academia and homeland security. Earlier this week, the council released a report from its Foreign Malign Influence in Higher Education subcommittee that, among other things, recommended that border officials receive more training on the role of travel in academic research.

Border protection

Donatti said that people have little recourse at the US border. Technically, a person who has landed at an airport but hasn’t made it through the immigration process is still outside the country. Therefore, laws related to access to an attorney and to probable cause — meaning that authorities must have sufficient evidence to suspect that a person is involved in criminal activity before detaining them or searching their electronic devices — do not apply. He advised that, while travelling, scholars of Asian descent should carry a letter from a lawyer saying that they have legal representation, and another from their university saying that they have a position at that institution. It could help, he said, but it still provides no guarantees of protection. “If you are a Chinese student, it used to be that coming to the United States was a gold standard,” he said. “Now it is terrifying because you truly do not know if you begin your studies, if you will be able to re-enter the United States” and continue your research.

When contacted by Nature, pathologist Qin Yan, president of the Asian Faculty Association at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who helped to organize the forum, called for direct dialogue with CBP representatives to address border issues. He also expressed worries about other efforts to tamp down foreign influence, such as a Florida law that limits universities’ ability to recruit students and faculty members from China and other ‘countries of concern’. “We are still a long way from repairing the damage caused by the China Initiative. The chilling effects will last a very long time,” he added.