Leading immigration lawyers and activists say the US government has intensified its crackdown on Chinese scientists and researchers – a campaign they argue is even more aggressive than the controversial “China Initiative” launched during US President Donald Trump’s first term.

“I think now we are clearly in an era of China Initiative 2.0,” said Robert Fisher, a former Assistant US Attorney and a partner at Nixon Peabody, a Boston-based international law firm.

The initiative, launched by the Trump administration in 2018 to counter alleged Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft, was scrapped in 2022 after drawing criticism for disproportionately targeting Chinese scholars and Asian-American researchers.

Speaking at an online panel hosted by the Asian-American Scholar Forum on Tuesday, Fisher said he was witnessing a “large uptick” in federal and state investigations involving China-linked researchers, scientists and professors, though he noted that most had not yet resulted in indictments or prosecutions.

Chinese-American scientists fear US racial profiling

“I have many, many folks who are under investigation, whether a search warrant was executed on their home or they’ve been stopped at the border,” he added.