Senate Committee's Compromise Bill on Student Visas Adds
Flexibility Sought by College Groups
The Chronicle of
Higher Education –
Monday, December
3, 2001
By SARA HEBEL
Washington
Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee
introduced compromise legislation on Friday that would place new restrictions
on the issuance of some student visas and would require colleges and federal
officials to more closely track the movements of foreign students in the United
States.
College lobbyists praised the bill, which they said provides
important flexibility on student visas that was not contained in other plans
that senators have proposed since September 11. In addition, the lobbyists said
the new legislation would tighten the visa system in ways that would help
improve the nation's security.
"I think it's a very good compromise, and we're
pleased," said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government and
public affairs at the American Council on Education.
Congressional aides and higher-education lobbyists said
Friday that it remained unclear, however, whether the Senate Judiciary Committee
or the full Senate would schedule a vote on the visa-reform bill this year. The
debate may have to wait until next year, as members of Congress frantically
work to finish appropriations legislation and other key bills before adjourning
for the holidays.
The senators' visa legislation would generally prohibit the
federal government from issuing student visas to individuals from countries
that the U.S. State Department considers to be sponsors of terrorism. Those
countries are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya,
North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.
However, the bill would allow some individual applicants to
be exempted from that restriction if the U.S. secretary of state, in consultation
with the U.S. attorney general, determines that they pose no safety or security
threat to the United States.
Higher-education lobbyists were happy that the measure would
provide the exception. They had voiced concerns about a previous plan -- by
Sens. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and Jon Kyl, an Arizona
Republican, who have signed on to the compromise version -- that did not allow
any flexibility for students from countries on the State Department list.
Keeping such individuals off American campuses might only harden anti-American
sentiments in those countries, the lobbyists argued.
In the 1999-2000 academic year, a total of 3,370 students
from those seven countries attended American colleges, according to the
Institute of International Education. Of those countries, Iran sent the most
students, with a total of 1,885 that year.
Other provisions in the compromise legislation contain new
requirements for colleges and federal officials to track the activities of
foreign students in the United States. Under the bill, the Justice Department
would be required to notify college officials when a student who was expected
to attend their institution entered the United States. College officials then
would have to notify the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service if a
student who entered the country did not show up on campus within 30 days after
the deadline for registering for classes.
If the bill is enacted, colleges also would have to report
more information about foreign students to the immigration service. That includes
the student's date of entry, port of entry, date of enrollment, date of
graduation or date of dropping out of the college, and degree program or field
of study.
In addition, the legislation would set up temporary
procedures to provide added scrutiny of foreign students while the immigration
service puts in place the new safeguards, including a database to monitor
foreign students that is supposed to be up and running by 2003. Under the
interim rules, State Department officials would be required to obtain evidence
that a student had been accepted to an approved academic institution in the United
States and to review that person's visa record before the department could
issue a student visa.
Finally, the INS would have to periodically review
educational institutions to make sure they comply with the record-keeping and
reporting requirements of the law. State Department officials would have to
conduct similar reviews of exchange visitor programs.
Among those who expressed support for the bill on Friday
were officials of the University of California, which has 9,000 foreign
students in undergraduate and graduate programs and about 23,000 more in
extension programs. University officials have been negotiating with Senator
Feinstein on student-visa issues for several weeks. "The University of
California is happy that the senators have developed compromise legislative
language that reflects efforts made by the University of California and the
higher-education community, with the senators, to strengthen the student-visa
system," said Chris Harrington, a spokesman for the university's
Washington office.
Mr. Hartle, of the American Council on Education, said the
only problem he had with the bill was that it failed to confront an important
issue to colleges: who will pay for the immigration service's new computerized
system to monitor students. College officials want the federal government to
pay for developing and operating the database. But some senators, including Ms.
Feinstein and Mr. Kyl, have said they expect foreign students to help finance
it.