Foreign students squirm as visa
curbs are eyed
By William Hageman
Tribune staff reporter
Published November 20, 2001
Marija Magdalena Knezevic is no stranger to the
workings of the United States government, having
studied the subject in high school in her native
Yugoslavia, before coming to this country 2 1/2 years ago.
But what she has seen and heard in the last few weeks has her shaking her head.
Knezevic, a junior at Columbia College Chicago, can't believe the extreme measures
that federal officials are rumored to have under consideration for monitoring foreign
students who come to the U.S. to further their education.
"They're talking about giving us cards that you can track by satellite," she says. "And
we'll have to pay for them. We have to pay for them to watch us -- $90 for the card. Real
peachy."
At this point, the microchip-imbedded cards and spies in the sky are only rumors. But
other changes are actually under discussion or in the works as the government tries
to plug holes in immigration and student visa policies that have been in the spotlight
since Sept. 11.
And it's these proposals -- the suspension of all new student visas for six months, a
total ban on students from certain nations, the establishment of a database to track all
foreign students, a requirement that such students carry an ID card with a photo and
fingerprint, and a more active role for the Immigration and Naturalization Service have
all been suggested - that have students plenty antsy.
Hearsay and anxiety are, in fact, the order of the day.
"Different rumors are being heard, but at the same time nothing is being said for
sure," says Niki Christodoulou, a Greek Cypriot who is a graduate student in
education at the University of Illinois-Chicago. "I think this increases the anxiety. When
the government says something for sure, then things will be better. Because people
will know, rather than listen to rumors."
"One of the unfortunate things about a situation like this is rumors that get started, and
it's hard to kill them," notes Victor Johnson, associate executive director for public
policy for the Association of International Educators, a Washington, D.C., organization
that promotes the exchange of students and scholars to and from the U.S. "There
certainly are discussions of having some sort of identity card for people . . . but I've
never heard anything as exotic as tracking by satellite."
"I think the students are naturally concerned; there's so much uncertainty about what's
going to happen," says Ravi Shankar, the director of the international office at
Northwestern University. "But we've been reassuring them that as of this point no laws
have changed."
Follow the rules
Symon Ogeto, the international student affairs adviser at Columbia College, agrees
that students are apprehensive, and understandably so.
"We have students here from Third World countries who don't have a voice from any
quarter," he says. "The students are, like, how do we go about this?
"It's really put international students in a state of wonder, not knowing what is going to
happen. . . . With the new laws falling in place, they don't know what will be asked of
them, what is right for them or what is wrong for them."
Pat Kinnally is an Aurora attorney who specializes in immigration cases and who also
teaches a course on immigration law at Northern Illinois University. His advice: Just
follow the rules and don't worry.
"I think for most people who are students wanting to come to the United States to get
an education at one of our colleges, if they comply with the existing . . . regulations,
they're not going to have a problem," he says.
Johnson concurs that people in the U.S. on student visas shouldn't have anything to
worry about as long as they stay "in status," that is, have their paperwork in order and
up to date in matters such as their academic work. But, he says, new legislation that is
being discussed could have big implications for the future.
"One doesn't know what, if anything, is going to pass the Congress," he says. "So they
have legitimate concerns about that."
`I am not a terrorist'
Asked about potential restrictions, Knezevic says, "They worry me. I'm not a terrorist. I
live an honest and decent life."
So do the vast majority of the half-million foreign students currently going to school in
the United States. But the fact that some of the terrorists involved in the Sept. 11
attacks on New York and Washington were in this country on student visas has
prompted the re-examination of visa policies.
"I curse the day when I heard that those guys were on student visas," Knezevic says.
The students can see the reasoning behind the crackdowns.
"With terrorists, there's no overreacting," says Dzenita Lukacevic, a native of Bosnia
who's a junior at Columbia College, studying broadcast journalism. "We don't know if
anything is going to happen today or tomorrow. Maybe the anthrax situation, that's
overreacting. But you can never overreact to terrorism."
There is, however, the fear that the efforts to prevent terrorism may make it more
difficult for international students to pursue their educations.
Already, The New York Times reported last week, FBI agents have conducted informal
interviews, mostly in California, with some 5,000 young men, many of them students
of Middle Eastern origin. None of the students or administrators interviewed for this
story reported having been contacted by government officials.
"I don't mind that the INS or the government may put in laws, but it should not be strict,"
says Ashwani Handa, a native of India who is a graduate student in engineering at
UIC. "They should monitor the students, I agree with that, because what happened
Sept. 11 should not happen again. . . . But it should not impact students coming into
the United States to get an education, who are coming here with a good purpose -- to
study, to enhance their skills, and then to get [hired by] some company in the U.S. to
work. These are innocent students."
They also play an important role in American education. According to an analysis last
year by the Association of International Educators, foreign students and their
dependents put more than $11 billion into the U.S. economy in the 1998-99 academic
year. In addition, they tend to be full tuition-payers and they tend not to get financial aid,
all of which makes them attractive to universities trying to balance budgets.
"When I was going for my MBA at California State University," Handa says, "I worked in
the international marketing department, and they would promote MBA and undergrad
programs all around the world. And . . . these programs generated revenue for the
university."
Foreign enrollment crucial
"It goes beyond budget, though," Johnson points out. "For graduate schools in
particular, especially in the scientific and technological fields, American students don't
study those subjects as much as foreign students do. It's not a popular kind of major
in this country. So a lot of these courses depend for their enrollments on foreign
students. If you had to rely on American students to fill them you wouldn't have enough
students to make it financially feasible for the university to offer the course."
So what might foreign students have to look forward to?
Kinnally expects there will be closer scrutiny as to whether students are maintaining
their status. He also predicts a better enforcement of exit procedures, allowing officials
to keep track of students' comings and goings. Johnson thinks that things that now
are routine might not be so routine in the future. For example, students admitted to the
country for the purpose of getting a bachelor's degree might find that they need a fifth
year to complete their studies. It has been fairly easy to get one's visa extended in
such cases, but legislation under discussion would require a student to reapply for a
visa.
Another example is students who routinely return to their homelands between spring
and fall semesters. Currently they have no trouble getting back into the U.S. to resume
their studies. Proposed changes in the law would make it more difficult.
"Hopefully none of these things will pass," Johnson says, "and we can work with
Congress to understand that while we want to have safeguards against having people
in this country who shouldn't be here, we don't have any interest in complicating the
lives of legitimate students."
There already has been some effect on prospective students, according to Gigi
Posejpal, the assistant dean for international student affairs at Columbia College. She
says she has been getting a lot of e-mails from interested students who wonder if
they'll be able to get into the U.S. to attend school.
"The interest is there," she says. "I'm getting 20 or 30 e-mails a day from people. They
do want to come and study. But whether they're able to get their student visas to come,
that's another issue."
And if they don't, America -- and the world -- may be the lesser for it. As the American
Council on Education reminded Congress in a September letter, "The overwhelming
majority of students who come here to study return to their home countries as
ambassadors for American values, democracy and the free market." It also pointed
out that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Jordan's King Abdullah II and Mexican
President Vicente Fox attended U.S. universities.
"You've got to remember," Kinnally adds, "that one of the great things about our country
is the great diversity we have. And that's the bread and butter of every university in the
United States, I would think. Or I would hope it is."
Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune
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