Boston University, as with other universities across the country, will soon comply with a mandatory computerized monitoring system implemented by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to keep track of all foreign students, scholars and visitors.
“Colleges and universities will have no choice but to comply,” said BU International Students and Scholars Office Director Greg Leonard. “We have no intention of turning away our international students. BU has a long commitment to international students.”
The new system, called Student and Exchange Visitors Information System, is an Internet-based database system aimed at tracking and monitoring the status of foreign students and visitors. The information will then be pooled into a central government database compiling and sorting the information, according to the INS website.
“It [SEVIS] asks for basic biographical information of the students, and it’s just a way to give the government information more efficiently,” Leonard said. “Clearly, what the government does with that information is not obvious.”
Although SEVIS has been in the works since 1996, the government recently pushed for its implementation as early as the summer of 2002 via section 416 of the recently passed USA PATRIOT bill, according to the INS website.
“If implemented correctly, it would relieve some of the pressure of taking other measures such as visa freezes, which Harvard wasn’t prepared to do,” said Kevin Casey, director of Federal and State Relations at Harvard University.
Most universities in the area already have their own monitoring system.
“We have our own internal system in order to create the necessary infrastructure. We’re in the process of implementing a new system,” said Sal Mazzone, associate director of the Institute of International Students and Scholars at Northeastern University. “The INS system will probably be mandated by next year, but we’ll be ready before then.”
Leonard said almost all universities monitor their international students as well as American students, but he admitted SEVIS would create a more involved type of monitoring.
“BU has not turned away any international students to my knowledge,” Leonard said. “We have about 4,400 international students and 840 international researchers and professors. Clearly, we value their presence here.”
With an international student population comparable to BU’s, Northeastern also realizes the impact such a system could have on the future matriculation of international students, Mazzone said.
“I think it would be much of a deterrent measure for people who come here with intentions other than just studying,” Mazzone said. “The great majority of the students come here and then bring their experiences back home. They value the graduate work here, and I think the levels of students will remain relatively the same.”
The INS came under intense scrutiny when the agency issued student visas to terrorists Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi months after the two hijackers died in the Sept. 11 attacks.
In a testimony before Congress, INS Commissioner James Ziglar of the INS said the visas were not issued to the two deceased assailants and the paperwork was still pending approval.
He also vowed to restructure the now haphazard government agency, which will include the creation of two separate bureaus dealing separately with immigration services and immigration law enforcement.
“It has become all too clear that, over time, the processes and procedures involved in approving naturalization petitions, changes in status and in other adjudication functions have become far too bureaucratic,” Ziglar said during his testimony.
Ziglar also proposed tighter restriction on student visas as well as tightening the ease with which foreign students can change their status. Under the proposal, the student status application would take about 30 days to process and would be checked against the Interagency Border Inspection System.
