Crackdown on foreign students

A couple of weeks ago I praised the Homeland Security Department's new Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol for implementing vigorous new programs to enforce our nation's immigration laws.

I specifically mentioned the Bureau's Arizona Border Control program, which has deployed 260 additional agents and a small arsenal of equipment to stem the flow of illegal immigrants across sparsely populated desert areas of our southwestern border with Mexico.

But that's not all, because the bureau has finally implemented the computerized Student Exchange Visitor Information System, which is a controversial and complex effort to track foreign students in the United States.

As of mid-July, according to the respected Christian Science Monitor, SEVIS was tracking more than 772,000 foreign students at 7,318 schools including the University of Nevada.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against New York City and Washington, D.C., Congress demanded a better accounting of foreign students in the U.S. because one of the 9/11 hijackers was here on a student visa and two others received posthumous student visas. After one year of operation, SEVIS seems to be making good progress.

"In the first year we've been particularly pleased with SEVIS' overall success," ICE spokesman Russ Knocke told the Monitor. "It's ... catching those individuals it needs to catch." Which is good news for the rest of us.

Since last August, SEVIS has produced 8,261 "violator leads," of which 1,122 required follow-ups by ICE enforcement agents resulting in 136 arrests. Federal officials declined to tell the Monitor how many of those arrests involved potential terrorists.

But while university officials agree that the new system is working, they also point out critical gaps, such as the relatively easy availability of fake "I-20" forms, which SEVIS was supposed to eliminate. The I-20, the key document needed to gain a student visa at a U.S. embassy or consulate overseas, is still too easy to obtain.

During the past year, at least 840 schools were denied access to SEVIS because they applied late or did not meet criteria for participation in the new system. Many of the schools that failed to meet the criteria were so-called "ghost schools" or "visa mills," according to the ICE. And some of them may have been flight schools, a category of particular concern for Homeland Security.

ICE agents continue to crack down on visa fraud at schools participating in the SEVIS program. Last August, for example, agents learned of an official at Texas Southern University in Houston who had been selling fake I-20 forms and fraudulent transcripts to "aliens" outside the university.

These aliens, in turn, sold the documents to Middle Eastern "students," a dangerous practice considering that all of the 9/11 hijackers came from that part of the world.

Even worse, EmbryÐRiddle Aeronautical University, a major flight school in Prescott, Ariz., was the target of an effort by a Nigerian student to set up a bogus online school with the same name. Last fall, many foreign students showed up in Phoenix to the surprise of school officials, who had never been notified that they had entered the country.

"I would say we received notification maybe one-third to perhaps half the time when our (foreign) students came into a port of entry," said an EmbryÐRiddle spokesman. "It's going to be a test this fall to see if it changes."

Overall, ICE and university officials agree that SEVIS has made it easier to keep track of foreign students in the U.S. Some school officials report that the new system has reduced paper shuffling and others say that it actually encourages foreign students to stay in school and maintain their course loads.

U.S. universities like foreign students and actively recruit them because most of them pay full tuition. Nevertheless, representatives of the University of Nevada and other schools have complained that the new tracking system "harasses" foreign students and makes it more difficult for them to enter the U.S. But that's a small price to pay in exchange for making our country safer as part of the ongoing War Against Terrorism.

JETHRO: District Judge Michael Griffin performed a public service last Monday when he ruled against Max Baer Jr.'s efforts to ignore Southgate Shopping Center property restrictions in order to build his Beverly Hillbillies Hotel-Casino in south Carson City. Despite the judge's decision, however, "Jethro" vowed to press on with his plan to build a garish monstrosity topped by a 200-foot-high flaming oil derrick. I don't care how many out-of-state letters he generates. No thanks!

SINATRA REDUX: I'm doing a reprise of my talk on the 1963 Frank Sinatra gambling license revocation case at 7:30 p.m. this Tuesday at the Gold Hill Hotel. All six of my readers, and their friends, are cordially invited. I'll see you there!

Guy W. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City.