Safeguards on Student Visas

Most of the nearly 850,000 nonimmigrant foreigners who attend U.S. colleges and universities in a given year add greatly to the educational experience of American students. They also bolster international relations by returning to their homelands with a better understanding of how this nation works. Unfortunately, as Sept. 11 made clear, the system that oversees foreign students must give priority to contending with the handful who would take advantage of this nation’s openness to attack it.

Congress has belatedly ordered the Immigration and Naturalization Service to develop an electronic system to keep track of foreign students.

The INS’ Student and Exchange Visitor Information System would use a Web-based database that would link U.S. embassies and consulates abroad with every INS port of entry and the 70,000 schools and other institutions eligible to admit foreign students.

Lawmakers need to keep establishment of that system on schedule, making sure it is up and running by the Jan. 1, 2003, deadline.

The INS says it will hit that mark. That is easier said than done, however, especially since the agency already is in the process of restructuring after many high-profile failures. Just last week it was reported that improper shredding of documents apparently had occurred at the INS’ Laguna Niguel service center.

Major academic institutions have been reluctant to commit to meeting the deadline. They bridle at the agency’s demand that school clerks be prepared to process thousands of records for a computer system with technical specifications that the INS has yet to provide.

Also, the American Council on Education is choking on the proposed $95 fee the INS would charge each student. U.S. taxpayers should not be asked to subsidize the lucrative arrangement that colleges have with foreign students. But since Congress already has provided $37 million to cover the development of the database and the fee would be used only to cover the annual operating costs, the $95 probably is not justified.

It should be an easy matter for Congress to mediate the proper amount. At the same time, lawmakers should tell the INS to streamline the way fees would be collected. The proposal would require a foreign student in, say, Bamako, Mali, to pay a bank in Chicago, which would issue a paper receipt and mail it to the student, who would then need to present it when applying for a visa. U.S. schools are asking that instead the State Department collect the fee directly at embassies or consulates. Then the department could transfer the money to the INS. And voila.

Congress is preparing hearings involving INS officials and representatives from the colleges. Lawmakers should make sure the system is fair but not indulge excuses. The nation’s safety demands that the new student visa program be implemented on schedule.