Government to update system
for tracking international students
By Megan Finnerty
Features
Editor
Some of the renewed nationalism that has blossomed
in the hearts of so many Americans following the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks has manifested itself in a skepticism of foreigners.
Because of this, the government is pushing for
the early completion of a tracking system for international students,
researchers and faculty.
Director of International Students and Scholars,
Michael Brzezinski, said the system is an updated version of one the
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service already has in place.
When the program, Student Exchange Visitor Program,
is completed, all U.S. universities and colleges will be required to
give the government a variety of information about the students at that
school.
"This will allow us to report data in a more efficient
way," Brzezinski said. "I think that this could help students get certain
benefits in a more efficient way. Now, it can take two or three months
to get certain things approved, such as employment authorization. But
with this system, conceptually, this could help get this done much faster."
Congress mandated the system, which was originally
proposed following the terrorist bombing at the World Trade Center in
1993, in the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
of 1996.
Since that time, Purdue has been working to get
ready and already collects much of what the new system will ask for.
One thing, however, that has worried most educators
was the issue of how the system would be funded. In the past, the government
proposed charging internationals $95 to pay for the program and having
the schools collect the fee.
"The thing most educators have been opposed to
is that we didn't want to collect the fee," Brzezinski said. "The government
should collect the fee itself. Or better yet, the government should
fund this altogether."
The program was to be in place by 2003, but Rep.
Lamar Smith, R-Texas, who sponsored the 1996 law, said he will push
for completion as soon as possible.
This tracking system will affect the 600,000 foreign
students throughout the United States, 4,695 of which attend Purdue.
The University has the second most foreign students in the nation, according
to numbers reported last year. The University also has a large international
faculty and staff — about 700 faculty and staff from about 50 nations.
Faisal Khan, a senior in the School of Management,
has been at Purdue since his freshman year and said, just as many other
international students have said, that the tracking system doesn't bother
him.
"I don't care; I mean, I don't have anything to
hide," said Khan, an Indian citizen from Bahrain, a small country near
Saudi Arabia. "They can keep track of me if they want to. The whole
idea of having a visa is about keeping track of who is in your country,
where they're going and what they're doing."
Brzezinski said, "Most people who work with international
students have not been opposed to this kind of tracking program. We
have this kind of information at our fingertips now."
The University already collects information such
as local addresses and phone numbers, contacts in case of emergency
and passport information.
Now, universities aren't required to report regularly
on the status of international students, but that would change so that
universities would have to report students' academic progress, reporting
if they change majors, drop below a full academic load, get a job or
are subject to discipline, among other things.
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