U.S. Adopts New Internet System on Student Visas
Fri May 10, 4:58 PM ET
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facing criticism over how easily some of the Sept.
11 hijackers entered and moved about the United States, Attorney General
John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said on Friday a new Internet-based system
will start in July to better track the 1 million foreign students in this
nation.
Colleges, universities and trade schools will have to collect and report
information to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) under
the system, initially voluntary but later mandatory, he told a news
conference.
"For too long our student visa system has been a slow, antiquated, paper-
driven reporting system incapable of ensuring that those who enter the
United States as students are in fact attending our educational
institutions," Ashcroft said.
The system will make the student information available centrally to the INS
in a database and will allow the schools to transmit it electronically via
the Internet, he said.
The system has been under development by the INS for years under a law
adopted by Congress in the mid-1990s. The data that must be reported
includes a student's failure to enroll and whether the student dropped out
or was expelled.
Ashcroft said schools may voluntarily participate on July 1, though under
the proposed rule, they must participate by Jan. 30 of next year.
The INS has come under increased scrutiny in the wake of the Sept. 11
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites). All
19 suspected hijackers who carried out the attacks entered the country
legally, although three had overstayed their visas.
INCREASED SCRUTINY
The INS was embarrassed in March, exactly six months after the attacks,
when a Florida flight school received notification from the INS that
student visas had been approved for two suspected hijackers, Mohamed Atta
and Marwan Al-Shehhi.
One of the hijackers, Hani Hanjour, used a student visa to enter the United
States, saying he wanted to study English, but he never showed up at the
school.
Ashcroft made the announcement before the release, expected later this
month, of a critical report by the Justice Department (news - web sites)'s
inspector general.
"Schools will be accountable for confirming the status of student visa
holders. The Immigration and Naturalization Service will be accountable for
enforcing violations of that status," he said.
"Rapid access to current, complete information on foreign students will
improve dramatically the INS's capability to enforce immigration laws and
keep track of this group of noncitizens in the United States," he said.
Ashcroft said the new system will reduce the time lag on when the INS
receives information. He said it was developed "in consultation" with
representatives of U.S. colleges and universities.
Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, a
trade association representing 1,800 colleges and universities, said: "The
bottom line here is this is what INS should be doing and we're fully
supportive."
He called it a "huge undertaking" under a very ambitious timetable, saying
the system linking up as many as 70,000 schools "dwarfs anything INS has
ever done before."
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