Thinking Clearly about Foreign Students and Terrorism

Marlene M. Johnson, Executive Director and CEO
NAFSA:  Association of International Educators

Reports that at least one of the terrorists responsible for the tragic events of September 11 may have entered the United States on a student visa have focused attention on foreign students, and on a foreign-student tracking system mandated by a 1996 law and currently under development by the INS.  

Under the proposed system, institutions would be required to report certain information about foreign students and scholars electronically to the INS and to immediately report any changes in that information.   Most of this information has long been maintained by the schools, but reporting it has not been required.  The costs of the monitoring and reporting system would be covered through a fee students would pay before applying for a visa. 

There has been much debate over the tracking proposal, and my organization has been its leading opponent.  That debate ended on September 11, 2001.  The time for debate is over, and the time to devise a considered response to terrorism has arrived.  But as we proceed with that task, it is worth remembering the significant benefits that openness to foreign students and scholars brings to our nation.

Obviously, much changed on September 11.  But not everything changed.  The United States still needs friends in the world - now more than ever.  One of the most important but least appreciated successes of American foreign policy has been the reservoir of goodwill toward our country that we have created by educating successive generations of world leaders.   As the debate on foreign students proceeds, we must recognize that our country gains much from being their destination of choice.

It also remains true that 99.99 percent of the foreign students enrolled in our institutions wish us no ill, cause us no problems, and seek nothing more than the best education in the world.  As the administration seeks to define an effective anti-terrorism strategy, we cannot afford to punish the many for the acts of the few.

September 11 did not change the fact that U.S. pre-eminence in science is not an accident; it is due fundamentally to our openness to scientific exchange, which has enabled us over the generations to benefit from the best scientific expertise in the world.  It is very much worth preserving the freedom of foreign scholars to participate in scientific exchanges at U.S. universities and research institutes. 

America's world leadership is being tested as rarely before.  But how will we continue to renew our ability to lead?  Another thing September 11 did not change is that we cannot effectively lead a world we do not understand.  Foreign scholars who help us understand the world from whence they come do not threaten our national security; they enhance it.

If cracking down on foreign students and scholars could really protect us against terrorism, it might be necessary to forego the benefits that they bring.  But that's not the case.  Foreign students and scholars constitute a tiny proportion of the 30 million foreign visitors who enter the United States annually with visas, and a minuscule proportion of the hundreds of millions who cross our borders legally each year.  Whatever degree of monitoring of foreign visitors may be necessary, we cannot pretend that we protect ourselves by applying it only to this small group. 

Monitoring systems will never reveal people's intentions.  There is no substitute for the intelligence community being able to identify dangerous people before they get here.  Absent that, we will always be blind.

The threat we face is very serious.  Our nation's response must be equally so.  Daunting foreign policy, military, intelligence, and security challenges confront us.  The job now is to focus the nation's attention and resources on these urgent challenges.  Given that foreign students are already among the most closely monitored of all nonimmigrant visitors, it is difficult not to see increased monitoring as a diversion from the task at hand.