By Jan. 30, 2003, all colleges will be required to use a new national database, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which tracks foreign students in the United States.
SEVIS is required under the Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which ostensibly aims at controlling illegal immigration by introducing such changes as removing the courts’ power of judicial review over deportations by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Another change is that it expands the definition for legal immigrants of “aggravated felony,” which justifies deportation, to include offenses such as shoplifting.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 have added fuel to the fire behind efforts to control the actions of immigrants, both legal and illegal.
Called CIPRIS in its previous incarnation, the foreign student database began in 1996 as a series of pilot programs in the Southeastern United States following concerns stemming from the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
The project was almost abandoned last year. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the program was resurrected as SEVIS and was expedited.
“We want visitors to our country to understand that we expect them to stay here on the terms under which they are admitted and to leave when they are supposed to leave,” said Peter Becraft, the Deputy Commissioner of INS, at a conference sponsored in part by Tufts University in March.
SEVIS is intended to prevent student visa abuse such as a student working illegally outside the employer stated on the visa or engaging in terrorist activities.
Student advisor of the International Student Association at The University of Memphis, Clar Nunis said with SEVIS, the government will know what they [international students] are doing and where they are. The database will track information such as current address, course of study, and length of stay.
When questioned about the practical intent of SEVIS, Nunis said, “They [the INS] are not doing this to send the foreign students birthday cards.”
She added that as far as visa abuse is concerned, she has witnessed one student whose visa was washed with the laundry.
She noted that foreign tourists and employees are not regulated this stringently, for those two groups are important to American industries.
“The idea behind SEVIS is to make this country a safer place,” said Arda Beskardes, Immigration Specialist at the Center for International Programs and Services at The U of M. “However, students are not a big threat to national security. SEVIS will not make this country safer.
“They [international students] make the easiest targets and are the easiest to control,” he said. “SEVIS will make life harder for those international students who come here with good intentions. Those with bad intentions will still do what they want to do by not coming in on a student visa or by simply vanishing.”
He noted that a public college cannot compel a student to disclose visa status and that a student cannot be denied admission due to his or her national origin.
Beskardes called international students “scapegoats.”
College lobbyists are divided over the intent and implementation of this fast approaching deadline.
In a letter sent in June to the director of the INS, NAFSA: Association of International Educators stated that while higher education supports efforts to crack down on student visa abuse, none of the 9/11 terrorists had ties to an institution of higher learning in America.
The letter added that, “International students are part of the solution to terrorism, not part of the problem.”
In a letter dated that same month to the director, David Ward, the president of the American Council on Education, wrote that, “The proposed deadline...is unlikely to prove workable.”
Ward cited various concerns such as the need to batch process information and the need for infrastructure at the INS behind the SEVIS system.
On the other hand as reported in a transcript, Deno Curris, the president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, testified before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Sept. 24 that “we [AASCU] stated our unequivocal and firm support for the SEVIS system, and we pledged full support for the implementation of that system by the reasonable date of January 30, 2003.”
As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education, Terry Hartle, said, “The higher-education community is anxious to implement SEVIS as quickly as possible.”
Many lobbyists, including Hartle, have been critical of the stance NAFSA has taken. Not only has NAFSA spoken to defend international students’ interests in the aftermath of 9/11, NAFSA has also stated in a letter that the “compulsory reporting deadline was chosen in an attempt to deflect political heat [onto colleges], and not because of any realistic expectation that could be met.”
Yet many college lobbyists are equally upset with the statement that the Jan. 30 deadline is reasonable.
The deadline was proposed by the Justice Department in the Federal Register on May 16.
Politics aside, there are complex technical problems that need to be solved before SEVIS can operate properly. Many of these problems, such as the physical entering of the data, are in the colleges’ court, yet many problems, such as fully implementing the SEVIS website, are problems being tackled by the government.
Many colleges say that this is simply too large an undertaking to be done by Jan. 30.
Meanwhile at The U of M, Nunis said that the requirements for conforming to SEVIS will not be finalized until January, which is when The University will be required to comply.
She said that pressure from a Congress rushing to make reforms in the aftermath 9/11 is creating an unrealistic expectation.
However, Beskardes and Nunis agree that The University will comply with SEVIS by Jan. 30.
Nunis does not agree with INS, and she questions whether the INS will be ready.
“They haven’t made clear what we’re complying with,” Nunis said.
She pointed out that, in the past, colleges were reporting much of the information required under SEVIS until the 1980s when the INS told them to stop reporting because of too much paperwork.
“It’s not the burden of the colleges,” she said.
Whatever happens, Beskardes said, “We’ll be on top of things.”
