Novel trends in U.S. national higher education internationalization policy efforts emerged in the 2000s. Within the context of globalization, the purpose of this historical policy analysis study was to capture the emerging direction of national higher education internationalization policy in three policy-making sectors (voluntary, private, and public) between 2000 and 2019. Novel policy efforts in the three sectors were evident in four major areas: (a) international education at home (language and personnel training), (b) international student recruitment, (c) education abroad, and (d) international institutional partnerships. Within all three sectors, interest in policy strands wavered and policy efforts veered towards international institutional partnerships. Policy efforts tended to disregard the impact of globalization on the domestic front, focusing instead on international ties.