- Atlanta - Boston - Chicago - DC Area - Houston - Jersey Area - Los Angeles - New York - SF Bay Area
- Earlier editions
- Astrology - Cricket - Money - Movies - Women - India News - US News
The September 11 terrorist attacks have prompted the US to speed up compilation of an electronic database on foreign students in the country.
The decision to expedite the process has been taken because one of the men who hijacked a passenger jet used in the attacks entered the country on a student visa.
About 820,000 foreign students come to study in the US each year.
The Immigration and Naturalisation Service is working on the database that will make it much easier for government officials to tap information on foreign students.
The database, called Student Exchange Visitor Information System, will centralise international student records from universities, colleges and vocational institutions from around the country.
The database was mandated by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. It was never fully implemented because of a large outcry from schools, which objected to collecting a $95 fee from the student visa holders, INS spokeswoman Eyleen Schmidt told IANS.
INS finally got the go ahead from Congress to roll out the programme starting this fall, just before the attacks occurred.
An association of international educators, called NAFSA, had opposed such a tracking programme in the past, arguing it would be "an unreasonable barrier to foreign students who seek legitimately to pursue their higher education in the United States."
But, in the light of the attacks, NAFSA said it no longer opposes the programme because the "time to devise a considered response to terrorism has arrived."
The database will include information like a student's name and address, country of origin, nationality, degree and any practical training outside the course of study.
Individual schools already keep the information on paper on their campuses. "They are recording the information on paper -- that doesn't do the INS any good," said Schmidt. "This will allow the most accessible way to get to the information."
Twelve schools in Boston will implement the programme this month and the rest of the nation should follow suit by 2003. The programme was piloted several years ago and currently holds 40,000 records.
"The overall need for information is appropriate," said Larry Gower, director of the Office of International Students and Scholars at the University of California at Los Angeles. "They simply want the ability to understand where the students are," he added.
Ultimately, Schmidt said, the program would also help the students, some of whom stay on in the US after graduation and transfer their student visas to H1-B visas. Before that can happen, the INS needs to analyse student records to make sure they didn't violate the terms of their visa.
"We get that information from paper. If we could get it electronically, it would take a couple of seconds, not a couple of weeks," said Schmidt.
Indo-Asian News Service
The War on Terrorism: The Complete Coverage
The Terrorism Weblog: Latest Stories from Around the World
External Link: For further coverage, please visit www.saja.org/roundupsept11.html
Back to top
Tell us what you think of this report
