Colleges wait to see how student visa plans pan out
■ President Bush has called for more
strict controls to ensure that student
visas are properly issued
By John Liebhardt
Oregon Daily Emerald
The jury is still out on President George
W. Bush’s call Monday to conduct a thor
ough review of student visa policies.
The directive came during the first meet
ing of the Homeland Security Council. At
the meeting, Bush ordered Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Attorney General John
Ashcroft to enlist the help of Secretary of
Education Rod Paige in instituting tighter
controls and ensuring that student visas are
being issued correctly.
“We plan on making sure that if a person
has applied for a student visa, they actually
go to college or a university,” Bush said dur
ing remarks made after the meeting. “And,
therefore, we’re going to start asking a lot of
questions that heretofore have not been
asked.”
Higher education groups say it is too early
to tell what changes will be made to the stu
dent visa program, which regulates the
more than 500,000 international students
and academics in the United States, includ
ing nearly 1,400 at the University.
“It appears as though the president was
perhaps a half a step ahead of everyone else
on this issue,” said Paul Hassen, assistant
director of public affairs at American Coun
cil on Education, a group of 1,800 colleges
and universities.
“We plan on making sure that if
a person has applied fora student
visa, they actually go to a college
ora university.”
George W. Bush
United States president
The Bush directive includes funding for a
database run by the Immigration and Natu
ralization Service that would share informa
tion on foreign nationals with other govern
ment agencies.
“It seems that the administration is seri
ous about letting the immigration service do
the job they were supposed to do,” said Gin
ny Stark, associate director of the Interna
tional Office of Education and Exchange.
Stark referred to a 1996 law which charged
the INS with setting up a database which
would allow government agencies to track
foreign nationals in the country. While the
law created the database, it never gave any
funding to the INS to pay for it.
Other than funding the database, Bush’s
order lacked sufficient details to give high
er education groups any chance to gauge
what effects it will have.
“Oregon Student Association is tradi
tionally opposed to legislation that broadly
hinders access to groups of people,” said
John Wykoff, legislative director of OSA.
“Whether this administration will create a
broad threat to access is hard to tell.”
Student visas have come under congres
sional scrutiny since the Sept. 11 attacks. Sen.
Dianne Feinstein’s office reported that one of
the hijackers of the Sept. 11 attacks was in the
country on a student visa. In the weeks after
the attack, Feinstein, D-Calif., called for a six
month moratorium on all student visas, but
rescinded the proposal after meeting with
concerned higher education groups.
Feinstein has since written legislation
with Sen. Jon Kyi, R-Ariz., overhauling the
student visa program. Feinstein and Kyi’s
proposal requires the INS to conduct back
ground checks before the state department
can issue student visas and stop issuing stu
dent visas to individuals from countries in
cluded on the U.S. State Department’s list of
terrorist-sponsored states, including Iran,
Iraq, Sudan, Libya and Syria.
Hassen warned that with competing bills
receiving hearings in Congress, not to men
tion visa plans submitted by ACE, legisla
tive and higher education leaders should at
tempt to strike a balance between the desire
for international students and national se
curity.
“We have a good visa system,” he said. “It
just needs a little tinkering.”
Bush’s plan only reviews student visa
policies, not policies of other visa types,
which sent up a red flag for Hassen.
“By focusing solely on student visas,” he
said, “we are doing a disservice to holders
of student visas and holders of all type of
visas.”
John Liebhardt is the higher education editor
for the Oregon Daily Emerald. He can be reached
atjohnliebhardt@dailyemerald.com.
Aviation
continued from page 1
The House is working on its own
version of the bill, said Jonathan
Grella, spokesman for Tom DeLay,
R-Tex. The Senate version stipu
lates a federal takeover of airport se
curity, while the House version of
the bill, called the Young bill,
would give the president discretion
to choose between the private sec
tor and the federal government for
security on a case-by-case basis,
Grella said.
President Bush has voiced sup
port for the House’s version of the
bill but has indicated he will not op
pose a bill that requires screening
workers to be federal employees,
said Lisa Wade Raasch, spokes
woman for Sen. Ron Wyden’s office.
The bill will likely be discussed
in a joint committee once the House
passes their own version, which
might go through by the end of the
week, Grella said.
“The Senate was anxious to get
the political hot potato off their lap
and hastily voted,” Grella said.
“(The House) wants to explore this
issue. (Senators) are more interest
ed in window dressing than keep
ing people safe.”
Supporters for the Senate’s ver
sion stressed that a federal takeover
is the only way to keep the country
safe. Raasch said that many of the
security companies fail to conduct
background checks on security
screeners and often have turnover
rates higher than 120 percent a year.
Security companies such as Ar
genbright have come under fire for
lax safety measures. NPR news re
ported Monday night that screening
workers routinely miss up to 20 per
cent of dangerous objects carried by
passengers.
“Private screening companies
like Argenbright should no longer
be allowed to provide security for
the front line of defense at our na
tion’s airports,’’ DeFazio said. He
noted that the company has been
fined $1.6 million by the federal
government for sloppy hiring prac
tices and lying to federal officials.
House Republicans favor legisla
tion that would give the president
control over the security situation.
Grella cited hijackings in Western
Europe when some countries’ avia
tion security was federally operat
ed. There were 31 hijackings in
Western Europe in the 1970s when
some countries had nationalized se
curity systems. In the 1990s, Grella
said, Western European countries
implemented a partnership be
tween the private sector and the
government; four hijackings oc
curred that decade.
Democrats in the House re
mained firm in their support for fed
eralized security.
“Right now we’re trusting the
front line to convicted felons and
minimum wage employees,” Gre
co said.
Both the House’s and Senate’s
bills establish an undersecretary of
transportation security that would
ensure safety in the airports. The
undersecretary would have the au
thority to issue emergency securi
ty rules without a cost-benefit
analysis.
“The price of keeping airports
safe is $2.50 a ticket,” Blumenauer
said. “It’s less than a latte. ”
Brook Reinhard is a community reporter
forthe Oregon Daily Emerald. He can be
reached at brookreinhard@dailyemerald.com.
2001 Charitable Fund Drive
Give it Up
for Others
On October 31st give up your soda, burger, or even just a
dollar, and donate the money you saved to charity.
Look for collection jars at the Area Desks, the Buzz,
the UO Bookstore, and the Greatful Bread.
All proceeds will be donated equally to the seven Charitable Fund Federations: Black United Fund of
Oregon, Environmental Federation of Oregon, Community Health Charities of Oregon, Children's Trust
Fund of Oregon, Equity Foundation, Oregon Habitat for Humanity, and the local United Way.