The Immigration and Naturalization Service Wednesday extended the deadline for colleges and universities to come into compliance with its new Student and Exchange Visitor Information Service to Feb. 15, but Boston University was ready to file data on the system’s original deadline, BU International Students and Scholars Office officials said yesterday.
The deadline, formerly Jan. 30, was extended two weeks after some of the 3,000 schools nationwide now required to nationally file information on foreign students complained the INS server was not responding properly, according to ISSO director Jeanne Kelley. The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System will now begin receiving information no later than Feb. 15, she said.
The new system will allow INS to collect information on foreign students in a central location. Colleges and universities will be required to file their international students’ legal names, countries of citizenship, dates of birth, dates of expected study completion, majors and class schedule by Aug. 1, according to regulations passed in 2001. Schools were originally required to have infrastructure updated for yesterday’s deadline.
Kelley said INS notified BU that the school has clearance to use the new system. She said the ISSO office has kept up with the changing student visa regulations and the ISSO is ‘more ready than the INS.’
The creation of SEVIS marks a change in the way student visas are handled, Kelley said. Before now, changes in visa status were processed on paper at a local level and did not need to be submitted to a centralized agency.
Under regulations passed over the last two years, the INS will require all foreign students with visas to get clearance before leaving the country, Kelley said. Failure to do so may complicate return to America.
The new regulations also require students to inform INS of any schedule changes, transfer to another school, extended time needed to complete courses, change of major, employment, work after graduation and changes in address.
‘There’s a lot going on here,’ said Jeanne Kelley, director of ISSO. ‘[Foreign Students] have to pay very special attention to the new deadlines and everyone has to be pre-approved.’
The creation of SEVIS was proposed to monitor foreign students in America after the 1996 bombing of the World Trade Center, but was fast-tracked after the INS found several of the terrorists who had participated in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington D.C. were in the country on student visas, but not attending school.
‘The specific regulations have not changed as much as the scrutiny of [visa] applications,’ Kelley said.
Increased scrutiny of student visa applications includes two new forms – the DS-157, which is mandatory for all male applicants between 16 and 45 years of age but can be given to any applicant at the discretion of the United States Consulate, and the DS-158, which requires applicants to list contact information and a work history with employer references.
Visa renewal will also be closely monitored, as citizens of what the State Department brands ‘states that sponsor terrorism’ will no longer be eligible for automatic visa revalidation.
Kelley said the list was originally made before both the 1996 and the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, but it has been growing rapidly over the past few months. The current list contains 25 countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Citizens of ‘states that sponsor terrorism’ will also need to register at INS offices in person after they enter the country with student, or any other class of visa, she said.
Kelley said SEVIS is a very ‘date specific’ program. The time between a foreign student’s decision to drop full-time status and the INS receiving that information is ‘a very short window,’ which is a stark contrast to the paper system where the INS did not need to know such information.
However, Kelley said the new electronic system is not entirely computer-based and every college will have at least one designated school official to supervise all forms to be given to the INS so the system is not ‘computer to computer.’
BU has 10 designated school officials, Kelley said.
Although Kelley attributed most of the confusion with SEVIS and international students to standard start-up problems, she speculates there may be long-term effects.
‘There may be some long term fall-out,’ she said. ‘But we understand that … the United States may not be as appealing as it used to be.’
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