The US government will keep better track of the estimated 1 million foreign students in the United States with a new Internet-based reporting system, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday. It's supposed to be in full operation by January, but some schools are doubtful.
While the Immigration and Naturalization Service has been working on the system for years, it didn't get significant funding until after the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings.
Americans "will gain a measure of assurance that the students who are visiting our country are who they purport to be," Ashcroft said. He said the current paper-based reporting doesn't efficiently verify if a student is studying at an educational institution.
The INS has acknowledged major gaps in tracking foreign students. Last month it imposed new restrictions on student visas, requiring any foreigner wishing to study in the United States to have an approved student visa before taking courses. Students previously could begin classes while waiting for visa applications to be approved.
Schools will be required to notify the INS within 24 hours if a student drops out or doesn't show up and to report the student's status after each term. A student will have 30 days rather than six months to show up on campus after entering the country.
Three of the 19 hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 terror attacks were in the United States on student visas. Hani Hanjour, believed to have piloted the plane that hit the Pentagon, entered the United States on a student visa. He was enrolled at a California school for an intensive English course and failed to show.
The INS will have a partial system running in July, allowing schools to enter one student at a time online, a Justice Department official said. By Jan. 1, the agency plans to have a system that allows schools to transmit databases with many names. All schools that accept foreign students will be required to participate by Jan. 30 or will be unable to enroll foreign students.
Terry Hartle of the American Council on Education said schools' ability to meet the deadline depends on when the INS calls to tell software vendors how to link schools to the system.
"What INS is trying to do on a very compressed timetable is orders of magnitude harder than any federal agency has attempted to do before with colleges and universities and other schools," Hartle said.
The tracking system will link every U.S. consulate with every INS port of entry and all 74,000 educational institutions eligible to host foreign students, Hartle said.
Victor Johnson of the Association of International Educators said schools most likely to miss the deadline are those with foreign student populations too big to enter names individually, but not big enough to warrant full staffs and heavy resources.
"The schools will be the ones portrayed as dragging their feet on the war on terrorism and that's not a picture everyone relishes," Johnson said.
For three decades the INS has required colleges and universities to compile information on international students. But because of the volume of paper generated, the INS told schools in 1988 to keep the files on campus.
Hartle said that when the new system is operating, foreign students accepted by a U.S. school will be sent an INS form I-20. The school will enter the student's information into the INS tracking system. The student then will have to pay a $95 registration fee and will be given a paper receipt.
The student must show that receipt and a completed I-20 form to apply for a visa at a consulate. If the visa is granted, the consulate will note it in the INS tracking system. When the student arrives in America, INS will note that in the database and notify the school to expect the student on campus within 30 days. If the student doesn't show, the campus must contact INS within 24 hours.
(China Daily May 11, 2002)
