By July, the government wants the ability to track all foreign students and scholars in the United States.
The U.S. House of Representatives already passed legislation and the Senate is reviewing a similar bill which requires universities and colleges to notify Immigration and Naturalization Services if foreign students make any number of changes to their academic life. These include changing a course of study, enrolling in fewer than 12 credit hours, transferring schools or participating in study abroad programs.
INS plans to create the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System?a database?to link all of the country’s colleges and universities to, enabling immigration officers to more accurately track each foreign student.
Bill Barnhart, director of the U’s International Center, said the idea behind the legislation and SEVIS is fear sparked by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
One of the men involved with the terrorist acts had entered the country on a student visa which he acquired to study at a university in California. The others entered the country on visitor visas meant for vacationers.
Since Sept. 11, the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars increasing border security in an attempt to prevent further terrorist tragedies. To implement SEVIS the federal government allotted $36 million to INS.
Barnhart believes there is no need to make the application process or rules regarding student visas more stringent because the student visa application process is much more difficult than the process for a visitor visa.
Currently there is not a system for tracking international students once they enter the country.
Lawmakers believe SEVIS will eliminate paper work and help keep track of the foreign students, Barnhart said. INS sees the policy change as a way to track down and report people living in the country illegally.
But international students view SEVIS as a peculiar change in policy which perhaps violates privacy.
As one of 2,500 international students at the U, Korean national Sung-Joo Lee said the idea makes him uncomfortable.
“If someone is watching me and knows everything that I am doing?the classes I am taking and what I’m studying?it would make me feel uneasy,” he said.
A lot of students, for many different reasons drop out of school for a semester or take fewer hours, it is pretty harsh to crack down on students so sternly, he said.
Steve Ahn, a U.S. citizen who grew up in Korea, said the new system sounds too unrealistic because it would treat humans like cars.
Cars are given vehicle identification numbers, he said, so that the police and insurance companies know who owns the car and whether or not the car has been in an accident.
“Humans are not vehicles and should not be tracked that way,” he said.
Barnhart feels that SEVIS would not track students enough to avoid another attack like Sept. 11. In order to do so, he said, the government would need to follow people so closely that it would create an oppressive system which violates decent privacy.
He feels that the legislation is an “over-reaction” to a national fear of terrorism.
There are also other problems yet to be resolved with the SEVIS program, Barnhart said.
For example, who will collect the $90 fee to pay for the service. INS wants the universities to do it, but the purpose of colleges and universities is not to serve as a collection agency for the U.S. government, he said.
Barnhart is also unsure if the program will create additional costs for the U.