Array
China said Friday that it will stop accepting deportees from the U.S. as part of its retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit this week to Taiwan.
The move was among nine steps announced by China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, along with ending cooperation on transnational crime and drugs, and halting talks on climate change.
It also raises the stakes for the Biden administration, which under U.S. law can punish countries that refuse to cooperate on deportations by refusing to issue new visas to that country’s citizens.
That decision belongs to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday, but analysts urged the Biden administration to strike back.
“This is really an opportunity for the Biden administration to show it’s not going to be jerked around by China,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which backs stricter immigration enforcement.
Under section 243(d), the part of immigration law that governs the issue, the government could deny all visas, though traditionally administrations have been more targeted.
