U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) praised the House Immigration Subcommittee for scheduling a hearing on Wednesday concerning changes to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS).
SEVIS, a service of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is a new web-based program designed to help schools monitor students who have international visas. The program began in January.
‘The flaws of the SEVIS system are serious,’ Frank said. ‘It is creating havoc in our schools.’
He said the system suffered from ‘severe technological errors and lack of sufficient resources.’
‘[SEVIS] takes too long, is not effective in keeping out the people we want kept out and not effective in keeping the people we want in,’ Frank added.
Frank said foreign students not only ‘contribute greatly to the vibrancy of our universities,’ but also alleviate the monetary burden on American students.
‘Foreign students pay full tuition or more [to attend American schools],’ Frank said. ‘[Preventing them from attending] places a greater burden on the American students.’
Frank said ‘we need to focus on the small minority of potential terrorists seeking entry to our country while a much larger number of students who pose no threat are being denied the privilege of studying here.’
Jeane Kelley, director of the Boston University International Students’ Office, said BU is also coping with difficulties inherent in the international visa system, including the lengthy security-clearance process.
‘We are still working through the bugs in the system,’ Kelley said.
She said the problem was the lack of efficiency of foreign embassies.
‘I would like to see [security] clearances be faster and more efficient abroad,’ she said.
Kelley said ‘we must work with the system’ rather than implementing changes because security clearances are necessary for university safety purposes.
‘I think it’s great that [Frank] is putting his voice out there,’ she added.
Frank said that although he no longer serves on the Immigration Committee, he continues to push for immediate revising of the SEVIS system. The point of the hearing, he said, was to ‘prod the administration’ into speeding up the revision of the system.
‘This was just a preliminary hearing.’ Frank said. ‘[I am] pressing for more meetings. It’s the type of thing that has to be done on almost monthly basis. We are trying to embarrass [the INS] into [correcting the system].’
Frank noted that spending more money on better equipment, such as computers, could help speed up the changes to the system.
‘The system can be improved by putting more money into it, putting more people on it and having better computers and better equipment,’ he said.
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