Copyright 2002 The Chronicle Publishing Co.  

The San Francisco Chronicle
MAY 8, 2002, WEDNESDAY, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A3

LENGTH: 741 words

HEADLINE: White House divulges student security plan;

Foreign applicants hoping to study sensitive subjects could be screened

SOURCE: Chronicle Staff Writer

BYLINE: Tanya Schevitz

BODY:
White House officials revealed a framework Tuesday for a new high-level interagency panel that will flag international students who want to study in some science and technology fields and thoroughly screen them before they get into the United States.

The plan to heighten security is a response to a call by the president for sweeping changes in U.S. immigration law after it was discovered that at least one of the Sept. 11 hijackers was in the country on a student visa.

The university subjects that will be given attention have not yet been pinpointed, but White House officials said it will focus on graduate-level and postdoctoral students who want to study and do research in the most "uniquely available and sensitive fields," such as the development of weapons of mass destruction.

While no specific country will be singled out, they said, students from those areas that sponsor terrorism would be looked at more carefully if there are other factors that cause concern.

"We don't want to cast the net too wide. It is really going to be a unique case-by-case analysis," said Shana Dale, chief of staff for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which is leading the project. "You are not going to be wholesale barring students from a particular country."

Students who appear "squeaky clean" would not raise a red flag if they wanted to study English literature but could be re-examined if they apply to study one of the chosen subjects, said Wendy Hall, a White House senior policy analyst. Instead of the current visa process run by the U.S. State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the flagged students would undergo review and background checks by a cross-section of security and science agencies.

"This is another filter to take a look at people who are interested in these unique and sensitive areas," Hall said. "This is going to be intelligence on who wants it and why."

Foreign students have been a focus of security concerns since Sept. 11 because at least one of the hijackers was in the country on a student visa.

Higher education leaders briefed Tuesday by the White House expressed relief that the policy -- which arose from a vague presidential directive in October to keep "certain international students" from studying "sensitive" academic subjects -- appears to be narrowly focused and based at the point of entry instead of at the university level.

"This is the way government is supposed to work. They took a presidential directive that was kind of scary . . . and they've turned it into something that makes sense, . . . and that is going to be good for the country," said Victor Johnson, associate executive director of policy for NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

University officials and advocates, who had no part in the development of the policy until now, were worried that it would threaten the open nature of the American academic system and undermine academic freedom and important research.

Many U.S. universities rely on foreign students to fill graduate programs in the sciences, and educators have said their contributions are essential to the advancement of science and technology.

They said it is a good sign that the new Interagency Panel of Advanced Science and Security will include scientists.

The panel will be chaired by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Justice Department with members from the counterintelligence community, including the FBI and CIA, as well as representatives from the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Science and the Department of Energy.

Scott Sudduth, vice president for federal relations at the University of California, which has nine research campuses and oversees the nation's top weapons laboratories in Livermore and Los Alamos, said he was heartened that scientists were given a seat at the table.

"What is at stake for us is really the vitality of the research enterprise but also the vitality of our institution," he said.

Sudduth said UC and other university leaders are going to watch the progress of the program carefully.

"We are concerned about students being unfairly profiled in any way," he said. "But we recognize there is probably going to be a menu of factors (and) if many (factors) show up at one time, that may trigger a review."

E-mail Tanya Schevitz at tschevitz@sfchronicle.com.

LOAD-DATE: May 8, 2002