Efforts to combat terrorism by closer regulation of international students continue to face opposition from higher education officials and some politicians.
Several bills about student visas and tracking systems stalled in Congress, but one tracking system already in development is scheduled to become operational soon.
Education officials worry that tracking systems may lead to a decreased number of foreign students at universities, adversely impacting the institutions both socially and economically. Educators also dispute the claim that terrorists were mainly abusing student visas. Only one of the 19 men implicated in recent terrorist attacks legally entered the United States with a student visa.
"If you look at the press over the past several months, educational institutions have responded by saying 31 million people enter the U.S. each year, but less than one million are international students," said Catheryn Cotten, the director of Duke's International Office. "There are still 30 million people that they are not tracking."
Education lobbyists have stalled the implementation of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which requires educational institutions to electronically gather data on international students. The system, called the Student Exchange Visitor Information System, will become available at Duke within one month, but it will not be available nationally until January 2003. Duke took part in the SEVIS pilot program, CIPRIS, that monitored the location of students and gathered their personal information.
"Full implementation of SEVIS will revise the process by which foreign students gain admission to the United States, resulting in improved integrity of the overall student visa process," Michael Becraft, acting deputy commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, told Congress last fall.
Cotten said the current visa process may be outdated, but that the University has always kept close track of its international students.
"We have always done a good job letting Immigration know what students are doing," she said. "I believe you should manage academics as an academic environment, not under government deadlines and schedules that disrupt the educational process."
Sugandhi Chugani, a sophomore and a citizen of India, is also critical about Congress' focus on student visas to combat terrorism.
"I understand that Congress is afraid that more terrorists will be let into the U.S. with student visas, but I don't endorse their measures in any way," Chugani wrote in an e-mail. "Regardless of what any of us international students say, they are going to go ahead with whatever conservative and xenophobic measure they have planned."
Karan Maheshwari, a freshman from India, also disagrees with legislators' emphasis on international students.
"Tracking international students is a way of sweeping [terrorism] under the carpet," he said.
However, many politicians argue that even the proposed programs are not enough.
Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., has vocally advocated student visa reform. She proposed frequent review of educational institutions to monitor their record-keeping and reporting requirements. If schools do not comply, she has said their permission to accept foreign students should be revoked. In addition, she said schools should record foreign students' arrival dates and send notifications if students do not report in 30 days.
"Today, there is little scrutiny given to those who claim to be foreign students seeking to study in the United States," Feinstein said in a hearing last fall. "In fact, the foreign student visa program is one of the most unregulated and exploited visa categories."
But Chugani said that in his experience as an international student he encountered difficulties when visiting the U.S. embassy to obtain a student visa to come to the University.
"It is downright degrading when a U.S. embassy officer looks at you as though you might be plotting to destroy the U.S. in some way," Chugani wrote in an e-mail. "I have received this look many times, and all I can do is comply with their instructions and give them whatever documentation they require."
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