EXCLUSIVE — A Republican lawmaker is looking to condition student visas to ensure foreign nationals do not engage in collecting or transmitting information to outside governments.

In a bill being introduced by Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) on Monday, the legislation would amend Section 214 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to restrict who is granted nonimmigrant status unless he or she submits certification not to engage in efforts to intimidate fellow international students based on their home country laws. The bill would specifically apply to nonimmigrant visas, which are issued to foreign nationals who intend to remain in the United States for an extended temporary period but not permanently. 

The bill would also require international students to submit certification not to commit “transnational repression on behalf of a covered nation” against someone who lives or has family who resides there. Covered nations include the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, according to the legislation. 

“In the freest country on earth, students should not have to worry about their classmates reporting them to the Chinese Communist Party,” Banks, who sits on the House Select Committee on the CCP, said in a statement. “This bill ensures that acting on behalf of or in coordination with the CCP on American college campuses will get you a one-way ticket home.”

The bill, named the “Breaking Beijing’s Hold on Campus Act,” lists several “transnational repressions” that would be explicitly prohibited, including any effort to intimidate or coerce a foreign student to “take an action in the interest of a government or ruling party of a foreign country.”

The legislation would also bar any effort to intimidate international students from exercising a right protected under the U.S. Constitution, as well as any attempts to kill or abduct a person to prevent him or her from exercising such rights. 

If any foreign national is found to be in violation of these stipulations, his or her nonimmigrant visa will be revoked immediately, according to the bill. 

The legislation comes in direct response to testimony by Georgetown law student Jinrui Zhang, who told lawmakers late last year about efforts from the Chinese Communist Party to surveil Chinese national students on campus. Zhang testified that he was harassed by fellow students due to his activism against his home country of China and that his family was also being questioned back home. 

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Zhang has come out in support of the bill, arguing it would be “immensely beneficial to American democracy.”

“International students contribute valuable skills and perspectives to their schools, but some students bring with them quasi-legal practices of authoritarian countries, such as the intimidation and repression of dissidents, and the corresponding values, such as the intolerance for different perspectives,” Zhang said in a statement. “These repressive actions should not be welcome on U.S. soil, where true constitutional guarantees exist for free speech. Therefore, I endorse this bill. If intolerance is tolerated, cherished liberties will suffer.”