Unofficial
Transcript for "SEVP" on PRI's The
World
Air
Date: Monday, May 21, 2001
LEAD:
For over three decades, US law has required the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, in close cooperation
with America's institutions of higher education, to keep track
of foreign students and scholars studying in the United
States. It's all the standard paperwork you might expect --
place and date of birth, address while in the United States,
what subject the student is planning on studying. Now, the INS
is in the final stages of turning that foreign student paper
trail into an electronic, computer based trail. But as The
World's Clark Boyd reports, not everyones thinks that the
Student and Exchange Visitor Program is a winner.
CLARK: Looking back, you might
argue that the 1996 legislation mandating the INS to create a
computer based tracking system for foreign students and
scholars seemed like a good idea. After all, both schools and
INS administrators had long been looking ways to streamline
the student visa process, and cut down on the mountains of
paperwork generated by it each year. The new program would do
that by creating a searchable, computerized
database.
But efficiency wasn't the only
impetus behind the legislation, which was passed in the wake
of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and its legal
aftermath.
JULIETTE KHAYYEM, HARVARD
UNIVERSITY:
It was determined that one of the
defendents in the case had come into America on a valid
student visa, and over the course of time, the INS had
basically lost track of him.
CLARK: Juliette Kayyem is a Harvard
University specialist on terrorism.
JULIETTE KHAYYEM:
When the FBI wanted to interrogate
him, they went to the INS and they said, where is he, and the
INS had no idea. He had, of course, withdrawn from the school
he was enrolled in, and it took some time to find him. And he
was ultimately found guilty of being involved in the
conspiracy to bomb the world trade center
CLARK: Those concerned about
domestic acts of terrorism applauded Congress and the INS for
creating what's now known as the Student and Exchange Visitor
Program.
But university administrators, like
Norm Peterson, Director of Montana State University's Office
of International Programs, immediately began to worry about
equating foreign students with terrorists.
NORM PETERSON, MONTANA
STATE:
It sends a message that we don't
welcome these students, that we're suspicious about them, that
we're trying to control them, and it makes it that much harder
for them to actually get here.
CLARK: Harder, because the INS is
making students shoulder the costs of the program by paying a
new 95 dollar fee. Peterson says that, and an on-line payment
requirement, could make it difficult for many would-be
overseas students to meet their visa
requirements.
But Jerry Bremer, ambassador at
large for counter-terrorism in the first Bush administration,
says the program will ensure a more thorough and efficient
screening of foreign students...and as for sending a bad
message, Bremer doesn't buy that argument.
JERRY BREMER, FORMER
AMBASSADOR:
Why would it send a bad message
to anyone who was not himself a terrorist? This information
has been required by anyone coming on a student visa for over
35 years, and this information has been required by the
universities. There's nothing new in it. If it sends a bad
message, it must be that the person has something to
hide.
But universities and colleges ARE
worried -- the potential loss of foreign students is a
prospect that many of them can't afford. Each year, it's
estimated that more than half a million students come to the
United States from overseas.
Victor Johnson is an Associate
Executive Director of Public Policy at NAFSA, an association
of international eductors based in Washington. Johnson says
America has a lot to lose by making it harder for foreign
students to enter the country.
VICTOR JOHNSON, NAFSA:
In the last academic year, foreign
students and their dependents spent 12.3 billion dollars in
the American economy. The loss to our foreign policy, it's a
huge asset for us to be able to educate the next generation of
world leaders in this country. It's not something we should
throw away casually. And the loss to the universities. These
people pay full tuition, which enables universities to give
breaks to American kids who don't have enough money to go to
school
CLARK: The INS says that its
sympathetic to these concerns, but is bound by law to
implement the Student and Exchange Visitor
Program.
Given that reality, INS spokeswoman
Eyleen Schmidt says the agency is trying its best to create a
program that will make the lives of foreign students
easier.
EYLEEN SCHMIDT, INS
SPOKESWOMAN:
The way their information is kept
now, it's in paper files, it can be found in several district
offices, and it delays any adjudication that they ask for such
as permission to work. What this central database will allow
us to do is make one central query and within minutes get an
answer, and so students can expect to see faster processing
times for their applications.
CLARK: The INS has been testing the
program at selected colleges and universities in the
southeastern United States. Catheryn Cotten is the director of
the International Office at one of those schools -- Duke
University in North Carolina.
CATHERYN COTTEN, DUKE
UNIVERSITY:
it's far more efficient than the
paper process. And that seems to be a universal opinion across
the 21 or so schools that are using the program. That it's
just much more efficient than handling the volume of paper
that we would normally have to handle.
CLARK: Cotten and others who have
tested the INS's system think that with consultation, the
government and US colleges and universities can make the
Student and Exchange Visitor program work.
But critics aren't giving up, and
there's some indication that lawmakers are listening. Just
over a week ago, Senator Sam Brownback, the Republican
Chairman of the Senate immigration committee, and Senator Ted
Kennedy, the committee's ranking Democrat sent a letter to the
INS, asking them to hold off on plans to go ahead with the
implementation of the fee program this summer.
So far, there's been no official
INS response to the letter.
For the world, this is Clark
Boyd.
