The University of Memphis will apparently meet the deadline for signing up its students to the new government system for tracking foreign students.
All listings on the Student Exchange and Visitors Information System (SEVIS) must be completed by this Friday.
Some schools had been working on pilot programs, but the Patriot Act of 2001 required all schools to begin using the system.
The Center for International Programs and Services has signed 740 current students and 320 recently admitted students to the program.
When a new student arrives in the United States, the port and date of entry are entered on an I-20 report, which is where information related to SEVIS is listed.
If the student does not report to the university with in 30 days, a university administrator will report the person as an illegal alien.
Other information on the report includes school name, gender, date of birth and more. Administrators must also report any changes to the system.
But the program has had problems.
"They rushed the system," said M. Arda Beskardes, immigration specialist for The University.
In February and March, the on-line system was crashing "every other day," he said.
While that improved, problems emerged because students must be registered with SEVIS to get a visa.
When a college enters a student's information into the system, consulates at American embassies are supposed to know about it through a data extract.
However, it is not always happening that way.
"Hundreds of students fall through the cracks," Beskardes said.
That, he said, has led to long delays in students getting visas.
Beskardes said that students feel the system "treats them as if they were criminals."
Students do cooperate, however. If a student does not sign up for SEVIS, it will cause that student to fall out of status and become an illegal alien, and reinstatement can take a long time.
Colleges allow illegal aliens to stay in school. If the university throws them out, it will violate discrimination laws, Beskardes said.
Some colleges bought new software and hired SEVIS compliance officers, but all it cost the University of Memphis was time.
"We already had our plates full," Beskardes said.
The immigration specialist handles immigration for students, faculty and staff, as well as the visitor exchange program.
The University of Memphis already had most of the information that SEVIS required. Mostly, they had to track down current addresses, as they only had post office boxes for some students.
Brenda W. Cowans, an international student advisor who has been working since June to enter current students into the database, said, "It has not been a hard process. It has been a long... process."
Beskardes said those in his office have to be very careful about the work they do. Students who know little about the American system have put their lives in The University's hands, he said.
"If you make a mistake... they could be deported," he said.
