LOS ANGELES?As the United States works to decrease its vulnerability after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is asking the federal government for $32.3 million to reform the student visa program.
Feinstein, who recently dropped a proposal for a six month moratorium on student visas, is proposing that the Immigration and Naturalization Service conduct background checks on all foreign students applying for visas, and that academic institutions update INS regularly on the academic and disciplinary records of foreign students.
Hani Hanjour, one of the suspects in the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon, entered the United States on a student visa but never pursued his education.
Some educators oppose the proposal, saying the new security measures may deter foreign students from studying in the United States.
?Our concerns are the message it might send to international students,? said Larry Gower, director of the Office of International Students and Scholars at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Currently, 4,800 foreign students study at UCLA, Gower said. Many of them come from countries the United States does not perceive as threats.
Concern about people on student visas is not new for Feinstein, who has been working to create an electronic database to keep track of foreign students since 1996, when such a system was mandated by the Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act.
The act stated that the INS had to compile a computer database to collect and verify information on foreign students by 2003, replacing its paper filing system which is slow and difficult to update.
?This has been a long standing issue with [Feinstein]; the need has been crystallized by the Sept. 11 attacks,? said Jim Hock, Feinstein’s press secretary.
Some educators protest there is no quick fix to the problem of not being able to track people on student visas.
?A quick and easy response would be very difficult, if not outright impractical,? Gower said.
Feinstein, who places part of the blame for the security breach that let Hanjour stay in the country on the outdated information system used by the INS, wants to clean the system up to comply with federal law and prevent further unlawful entries through the student visa program, Hock said.
Feinstein decided to drop her proposed six-month moratorium after it proved unpopular with many students and educators. A letter from David Ward, the president of the American Council on Education, urged Feinstein to focus her efforts in a different direction.
INS statistics from 1999 show that about 570,000 people were in the United States on foreign student visas, compared with 31 million people that entered the country using business or tourist visas.
Since students make up less than 2 percent of foreigners in the United States, according to Paul Hassen, assistant director of public affairs at ACE, ?it is unfair to single out students when they represent such a small percentage.?
In his letter, Ward stressed the willingness of academic institutions he represents to work toward improving the system for keeping track of individuals in the country on student visas.
With this pledge, Feinstein dropped the moratorium from her plan, and she is now pushing for the computer database?known as the Student Exchange Visitor Information System?with the support of ACE.
?We have been in favor of the tracking system for a long time,? Hassen said.
The new system would be Internet-based so the information could be easily updated.