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International Student Issues: Articles
Int'l Grad Student Applications Decline, from the Columbia Spectator, March 25, 2004
Foreign Students Confront Visa Woes, from the Columbia Spectator, January 23, 2004
Grad Union Seeks CU's Help With Visa Delays, from the Columbia Spectator, October 3, 2003
International Issues, an opinion piece written by GSEU member and international student Thania Sanchez, from the Columbia Spectator, September 18, 2003
International Students Face New Visa Delays, from the Columbia Spectator, September 27, 2002
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Int'l
Grad Student Applications Decline Visa Delays, Security Checks May Contribute to Decisions Not to Apply to U.S. Schools By
Lauren Pardee Spectator
Staff Writer Columbia SpectatorMarch
25, 2004 Recently
released statistics suggest that regulations imposed by the U.S. government
are deterring significant numbers of international students from applying
to U.S. graduate schools. Rather than face the possibility of lengthy
visa delays, many international students seem to be choosing to study
in countries other than the United States. While
Columbia has thus far managed to maintain an international student population,
it too has experienced a major decline in the number of international
students applying to its Graduate School of Arts and Science. An
article in the March 12 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education summarizes
the data collected from recent surveys. Of 250 responding institutions,
48 percent reported a decrease in the number of graduate student applications
this year, and only 14 percent reported an increase. Applications to the
19 universities with the largest international enrollments all dropped
by more than 10 percent, and nine of those universities experienced a
drop of 30 percent or more. According
to Richard Tudisco, associate provost and director of the International
Students and Scholars Office at Columbia, applications to Columbia's GSAS
fell by about 15 percent this year. These
statistics are consistent with the previously reported data that the number
of international students enrolled in American institutions increased
by only 0.6 percent in 2002, after having increased by 6.4 percent in
the two previous years. Applications
from countries that send the most international students declined the
most dramatically. Applications from China fell by 76 percent, and those
from India fell by 58 percent. These numbers are particularly striking
considering the fact--as reported by The New York Times on Jan. 18--that
applications from China increased by 25 percent in Australia and 36 percent
in England, and applications from India increased by 31 percent in Australia
and 16 percent in England. Taken
together, these figures seem to confirm that students are indeed "starting
to vote with their feet," as Victor C. Johnson, associate executive
director for public policy at NAFSA: Association of International Educators,
suggested in The Chronicle. The article also suggested that they are choosing
to study in countries that impose fewer restrictions on international
students than does the U.S. One
restriction that seems to serve as a significant deterrent to study in
the U.S. is the new Visa Mantis system. This program requires additional
security checks on individuals studying any of the 200 scientific disciplines
included on the government's Technology Alert List. These checks have
been one major cause of visa delays--the average processing time is about
30 days, but many students have experienced delays of several months or
more. Eighty
percent of the Visa Mantis cases occur in China, India, and Russia, suggesting
that these checks are contributing to the substantial application declines
from these countries. The total number of cases has tripled since 2001.
The
fact that applicants for undergraduate study do not have to undergo these
additional checks may help explain why the number of undergraduate applications
to U.S. institutions has remained relatively stable. Mirroring national
trends, Columbia has not experienced a drop in the number of international
students applying to its undergraduate programs. Nonetheless, the direct
cause of the difference in application rates to undergraduate and graduate
programs remains uncertain. Another
possible reason why students from China may be choosing to study elsewhere,
as Tudisco explained, is that the U.S. visa law is based on reciprocity,
so the U.S. imitates Chinese policy toward American students and only
allows Chinese students a six-month long window in which to enter the
U.S. on their visa. The practical result is that Chinese students who
leave the U.S. to visit home or attend conferences must reapply for visas
and risk experiencing delays that will leave them stranded abroad. The
Columbia University Chinese Students and Scholars Association has taken
an active role in recording such cases. Students facing delays post to
the CUCSSA Web site. One entry reads: "Stuck in Canada. Personal
life is in chaos. I cannot take care of my family and home in U.S. Great
loss is also caused to the American company I work for." Another
obstacle thwarting international students is a Department of Homeland
Security regulation that requires U.S. universities to enter international
students into the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System database.
This data is then transferred to the State Department. While
The Chronicle reported that the SEVIS system has been more efficient than
expected, Tudisco said that last year Columbia experienced 125 to 130
instances of data transfer problems associated with SEVIS. Moreover, on
June 1 the State Department will begin charging a $100 fee in order to
maintain SEVIS, an additional step in the process that Tudisco and others
fear will further exasperate delays. The
Chronicle suggests all of these restrictions are creating the impression
abroad that "the United States no longer wants foreigners to study
at its institutions," an impression that Jianbo Lei, a member of
the CUCSSA advisory committee and a second-year Ph.D. candidate in the
Biomedical Informatics Department, confirms. "Before
the visa security check, U.S. is absolutely the only country that those
most talented students want to go," Lei wrote in an e-mail. "However
... there are increasing concerns that U.S.A is no longer the free country
which respects humanity and dignity ... Can you imagine how you feel that
someone suspect you are a bad person or doing something bad to others?"
Despite the trends, Tudisco still believes that the highly motivated students who qualify to study at Columbia "will not let our bureaucracy stand in the way of achieving their academic and life goals."
Foreign
Students Confront Visa Woes Columbia students have assumed a lead role in the battle against discriminatory visa policies. By
Telis Demos Spectator
Senior Staff Writer Columbia SpectatorJanuary
23, 2004 While
most students headed home for the winter holidays, for the second year
in a row Charles Shen, a citizen of China studying in the United States,
decided not to leave the country. Like
many foreign science students, Shen's status as an international student
has been increasingly threatened by recent changes in American attitudes
toward foreign citizens studying and working within U.S. borders. To some,
he is a potential terrorist or source of information about weapons technology.
To others, he's a threat to native-born workers looking for jobs. Shen
is a Ph.D. candidate in Columbia's graduate engineering program and a
citizen of China, and is classified by his visa status as a temporary
visitor to the United States. He must renew his visa and go through an
additional round of background checks each time he leaves the country.
That application can only be made in his home country at the end of his
stay, and the process can take months even if the visit home is just a
brief one. An
informal survey by the Columbia University Chinese Students and Scholars
Association has found 1,052 cases of visa holders delayed in their re-entry
to the United States, 288 of which are still pending. The average wait
was three to eight months, with some waiting up to 11. Nearly half of
those are post-doctoral students, most of them male and students in the
hard sciences like bioengineering and physics. At Columbia, there are
currently at least five graduate students who are still facing pending
visa applications. "We
know how serious the problem is," Shen said. "So it was a choice
of me and some of my friends not to go back this year for the Chinese
New Year." For
Hepan Tan, a Chinese citizen and a graduate student at the College of
Physicians and Surgeons, the visa issue comes with a lot of hardship and
humiliation. He couldn't attend an international conference in Australia,
even though he had been offered a travel fellowship. He couldn't even
go home. "My mother was in the hospital for a month with a stroke
without my presence," Tan said. "I was away from home for four
and half years." While
the process of obtaining a visa has never been a simple one--even before
Sept. 11, 2001--new layers of processing have extended the system to the
point where many graduate students and researchers are finding their academic
status in jeopardy. Extensive background checks that require coordination
between international consulates and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
have made visa applications and renewals. Many
students say that even when they have frequent contact with local consulates
in their home countries, visa officers are hesitant to act because of
delays in information coming back from the United States. A 2002 memo
from Homeland Security required that any case in doubt should be submitted
for a full review. The
new step of registering with the Student and Exchange Visitor Information
System database before a visa application can be filed adds to the time
between acceptance and attendance for first-year students. Visa applicants
must also prove that they are not planning to immigrate to the United
States. For
students from countries like China and Iran, for whom only six-month visas
are available, renewals and background checks are required every time
they leave the United States. Many are often stranded even when they only
intended to travel for a few months, delaying needed graduate study and
research and ultimately deterring many friends back home from bothering
to apply to schools in the United States. Before
Sept. 11, 2001, it was highly unusual to have such delays because of security
concerns, said Ellen Cohen, the director of the International Students
and Scholars Office at Columbia. She said that now, male students from
the Middle East are particularly likely to experience delays. Many
in the sciences feel as if they are being unfairly targeted. Science researchers
and graduate students are especially likely to wait on background checks,
as the Bush administration has issued directives to target students in
disciplines potentially linked to nuclear sciences or weapons for deeper
investigation. Last year was the first since 1994 in which the number
of scientists applying for visas in the United States decreased. The
number of foreign Columbia students has declined, falling from a high
of 5,478 in fall 2001 to 5,250 in fall 2003. While those numbers are historically
very high, it mirrors trends at other universities and confirms the increasingly
widespread belief that students are now choosing to stay away from American
schools. "The
University really suffers for it," Cohen said. "It's hard to
predict which graduate students will continue their studies." Students
are caught in the crossfire on both security and economic fronts. Several
of the Sept. 11 terrorists were living in the United States on expired
student visas, while students studying in the sciences are seen as threats
to Americans in a tight job market. New
immigration reform proposals by the Bush administration--along with criticisms
of open borders by Democratic candidates and the failure of the job market
to rebound along with the economic growth rate--have put concerns about
foreign workers back in headlines. A recent study at Northeastern University,
which showed that 600,000 more foreign workers and 1.5 million fewer native-born
workers found jobs in 2003 than in 2002, was front-page news in Thursday's
USA Today. Defense
of the status of foreign students has become a rallying point for graduate
student clubs and unions across the country. The Columbia University Chinese
Students and Scholars Association has made national news as one of the
primary sources for information and anecdotes about foreign students unable
to return to their universities. Recent articles in The New York Times,
MSNBC Online, and Nature magazine have pulled sources from the CUCSSA's
web database of delayed students. The
Columbia club has joined with similar groups at 80 other universities
who have heard from increasing numbers of desperate students and scholars
in order to lobby Congress to streamline the visa application and background
check process. The CUCSSA has written an open letter to the Columbia community
asking for help in lobbying for legal changes and raising the media profile
of students in limbo. Graduate
student unions nationwide have pledged to support their foreign members
and make the issue one of their top lobbying priorities. A group of schools
led by Yale's Graduate Employees and Students Organization have sponsored
the Petition for Academic Visa Reform. The petition calls on U.S. lawmakers
to look into ways to streamline and expedite the visa renewal process
by starting background checks--the main cause of delays--earlier in the
process: when students are accepted into graduate school or a few months
before they plan to leave the country. "We've
proposed a process to enhance national security and improve conditions
on the ground for graduate students," said Antony Dugdale, a research
analyst for the Federation of Hospital and University Employees at Yale
University. Thousands
of students and academics have signed the petition. Last October, Columbia's
Graduate Student and Employees Union petitioned Columbia's central administration
to use their lobbying leverage to press for changes to the visa application
procedures. "Now
we're beginning to pool our resources together," said David Carpio,
a 2002 biology Ph.D. graduate and a GSEU organizer. "We're part of
labor movement which has a lot of political power." There
are some signs that the system is maturing. The early-January implementation
of a new program requiring the fingerprinting and electronic identification
of all visa holders entering the United States has not been a particularly
bothersome process, according to many who have passed through it. They
say that any electronic centralization is welcome help for them. "It's
always been a stressful experience," said Andrew O'Neill, a researcher
in the physics department from the United Kingdom. "So the more computer
equipment, the better." Henry
Pinkham, the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said in
a past interview with Spectator that "Columbia has moved heaven and
earth to get [students] back in," noting that some students had been
offered video links for exams. Pinkham was unavailable to comment for
this article. While
Columbia administrators say they do their best to leverage its political
influence to ask lawmakers to protect its students, they emphasize there's
often little that can be done to save a student from the bureaucratic
morass of new requirements. "When it's based on a security processing," Cohen said, "There's nothing we can do. When it's a logistical thing, we certainly do intervene."
Grad
Union Seeks CU's Help With Visa Delays
Union reps believe that Columbia should remedy the post-Sept. 11 problems. By
Katie Goldstein Spectator
News Editor Columbia SpectatorOctober
03, 2003 As
international students in the United States continue to weather the effects
of security legislation prompted by Sept. 11, graduate students at Columbia
are advocating a new University policy on visa delays to the administration. But
administrators say they are already doing everything in their power to
bring students back into the country. Graduate
Student Employees United, an affiliate of United Auto Workers Local 2110,
delivered the policy on international student visa delays to University
President Lee Bollinger's office on Wednesday morning. Members of the
organization say that though the University has been dealing with the
delays on a case-by-case basis, a formal policy is necessary for consistent
treatment of each case. The
responsibility for bringing international students to the U.S. rests mainly
with the International Students and Scholars Office, but GSEU is pushing
for greater involvement from the University administration. "The
situation is rapidly reaching a crisis point," said GSEU member David
Wolach, a student in the philosophy department. "Our
feeling is that Bollinger is the president of an international university
and we expect him and the University to lobby on behalf of students on
a national level but also in his own house." Students
face many problems as a result of visa delays, which can last up to several
months; problems range from housing issues to lost research time to library
fines. GSEU has proposed that the administration protect students from
such problems. "There's
a lot of reasons you don't want to be stuck out of the country,"
said GSEU member Andy O'Neil, a student in the physics department from
the United Kingdom. "When I changed [visa] status in the summer of
2002, I missed part of my summer research. If you're a researcher you
need to maintain authorship." O'Neil
noted that despite the lack of an official process to deal with visa delays,
the University has been "very good" on a case-by-case basis. Wolach
agreed that "the ISSO is doing good work," but emphasized that
GSEU believes the administration should develop guidelines to support
international students. Yet,
members of the administration question the necessity of such a policy. "Columbia
has moved heaven and earth to get [students] back in," said Henry
Pinkham, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He
cited one case in which a student who faced a visa delay defended his
thesis via videolink. Pinkham
said it is not clear to him why the University needs a policy like the
one GSEU has recommended. He noted the role of the ISSO in handling the
issues faced by international students and added that Columbia is among
a consortium of universities lobbying the State Department so that new
visa requirements apply flexibly to students. "We're
on top of this," he said. "We know what's going on." GSEU's
proposal, Pinkham said, does not differentiate between returning international
students and incoming international students, but he said procedures for
dealing with new students exist. All
academic departments have agreed to allow students to defer entrance if
they have visa delays. "For
returning students, there have been very few problems," he said. Problems
that do exist, however, must be handled. In addition to the ISSO, international
student organizations on campus, such as the Columbia University Chinese
Students and Scholars Association, have also been dealing with concerns
of students with visa delays. Jainbo
Lei, president of CUCSSA and a student in the biomedical informatics department,
said that Columbia has been doing well in dealing with visa delays. The
CUCSSA has a database where students from hundreds of universities can
report their visa delays; Lei noted that, of the 17 cases reported for
Columbia, most students are already back. "If
the policy is there, we'll feel more sure we're protected," Lei said.
Though
he said he agrees with the goal of GSEU's policy, Lei said he believes
it will be difficult to implement it. After
GSEU approached him with the proposal, Lei said he e-mailed students in
the database to see how they felt about it. According
to Lei, one non-Columbia student detained in China replied, "I don't
want sympathy from the U.S. Can you send my stuff back to China?" Although
GSEU's proposal is Columbia-specific, GSEU and graduate student organizations
at other universities are also advocating visa reform on a national level.
The Graduate Employees and Students Organization at Yale University has launched an academic visa reform petition to the U.S. government and university presidents.
Opinion International Issues By Thania Sanchez Columbia
Spectator September
18, 2003 Even as we mark the second anniversary of Sept. 11, international students at Columbia continue to struggle with fallout from the "War on Terror." Although only one of the Sept. 11 terrorists is suspected of having entered the country on a student visa, an increasingly conservative federal government has been directing a series of new laws targeting international students that are restrictive and discriminatory. The result has left many at Columbia subject to deportation, visa delays, refusal of entry into the United States, and monitoring of financial and academic information. Visa
delays and restrictions have already sent ripples of concern through the
Columbia community. In the Physics Department, three Chinese graduate
students were admitted to begin Ph.D. studies this year, but the U.S.
State Department has repeatedly denied them visas. Their visas were denied
on the grounds that they do not have "strong enough ties" to
their home countries to compel them to return after their programs are
completed. An engineering graduate student doing research in Germany was
barred from re-entering the U.S. for nine months. Another from the Physics
Department faced a six-month visa delay, consequently delaying his thesis
defense; "I had to postpone my defense schedule, pay my rent in Columbia
for half a year, lost thousands of dollars, and had nowhere to complain,"
he said. The
administration has not provided any hard figures on the number of graduate
students whose visas have been delayed or denied, but the Columbia University
Chinese Students and Scholars Association has tracked 17 doctoral students
who have faced visa problems. Numerous graduate students have contacted
Graduate Student Employees United (GSEU/UAW), the organization trying
to unionize teaching and research assistants, seeking assistance with
visa delays and deportation. Nationwide,
students who leave the U.S. for academic or personal reasons face massive
delays in being processed to return to the U.S. According to the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, 10,000 people from 26 countries
have experienced delays of two months or longer in getting their visas
approved or renewed. This new political climate has all but criminalized
international students and has made studying abroad a risky proposition. The
consequences of such delays are not just academic; due to Columbia's lack
of a clear policy regarding what to do in the event that a student is
delayed in his or her home country, many international students have also
been economically impacted. While barred from re-entering the U.S., these
students are still charged rent on their apartments as well as library
and matriculation fees. Miscellaneous bills continue to pile up in their
absence. Currently, under the U.S. Patriot Act, any international student
can be deported without cause or be detained without legal assistance.
Adding insult to injury, the Department of Homeland Security requires
international students to pay for the bureaucracy that monitors them.
Each international student must pay a one-time registration fee to enroll
in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. A
new alarming development proposed by the White House is the IPASS, the
Interagency Panel on Advanced Science and Security, which does not allow
international students and researchers to study technology available only
in the U.S. International
students face growing obstacles to study in the U.S. but are now using
their unconventional political power to fight back. Around the country,
international student groups and labor unions have united to beat back
the wave of anti-immigrant laws. Here at Columbia, GSEU/UAW, our graduate
student employees' union, is campaigning to fight current legislation
and Columbia's anemic response to it. The union has recently co-sponsored
a petition, started by Yale's graduate student union (GESO), which calls
on the Bush administration to offer, among other things, longer-term visas
and more streamlined check policies. In 2001, the UAW wrote a letter to
Columbia's then-president George Rupp urging him to join in efforts to
oppose "any policy, regulation, or legislation that attempts to discriminate"
against international students, particularly the "Visa Reform Act."
The act sought to prohibit admission to the U.S. of any students from
countries on the State Department's list of state sponsors of international
terrorism, and it also sought to impose heightened monitoring of international
students. We were able to defeat the Visa Reform Act, but the Patriot
Act has resulted in similar legislation. Although
international students cannot vote in American elections, we can reshape
the political climate in the U.S. by participating in our unions and other
organizations. By working with GSEU/UAW and international student groups
like the CUCSSA, we can begin to protect ourselves against such harmful
legislation. We can elect international student leaders here at Columbia
and lobby the administration as well as the government on the issues that
affect our lives. As
we continue to be pushed into the margins of American society, international
students and workers face the danger of being pushed entirely off the
edge. We must act for our own good, but to accomplish anything we must
stick together--our solidarity and strength in numbers will be crucial
to making a difference. The author is a second year graduate student in Political Science.
International
Students Face New Visa Delays The State Department has pledged to reduce the wait time to one month. By
Isolde Raftery Spectator
Managing Editor Columbia SpectatorSeptember
27, 2002 While
living in Tokyo last year, a Finnish national applied simultaneously to
the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and for a student visa, also
known as an F-1. Columbia accepted him in May; the State Department took
six months longer. Delays were due to a policy instated by the Bush administration
as a response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. But
the State Department said the delays will cease soon: On Tuesday, Sept.
24, it issued a statement declaring it will release software that will
reduce the wait for visas to the standard of one month. "In
the future, these security reviews are expected to take less than a month
from the time of visa application," the release read. Three
months ago, in a statement that received little media coverage, the Bush
administration ordered that the visa process be modified for certain applicants.
The policy requires all males ages 16-47 from 26 specified countries--most
are in the Mideast, but also include Pakistan and Malaysia--apply directly
to Washington for their visa for approval. Applicants
that fall within these specifications are asked to submit details beyond
the standard information, including addresses of relatives and documentation
of prior travels. Now,
due to a shortage of staff and inadequate filing systems, the State Department
is dealing with a backlog of visa applications. One American official
told The New York Times in an article that appeared on Sept. 10 that the
backlog includes up to 100,000 visa applications. Checking names against
a "watch list," which comprises the names of suspect individuals,
also adds to the wait. With similarities in names and dates of birth,
many visa applications must undergo additional scrutiny. Applications
for visas dropped as a result, and many of those who applied for visas
returned home, frustrated by delays and unresponsive bureaucrats. At
Columbia, the International Students and Scholars Office reported that
twenty-seven graduate students accepted to Columbia had difficulties with
their visa applications this semester. Five have registered and are attending
classes; 16 have deferred to the spring semester or next year. The other
six have not corresponded with the ISSO regarding their plans. Before
this policy went into effect three months ago, Rick Tudisco, director
of the ISSO, said correspondence with consulates was efficient. But these
regulations "require back and forth communication between consulates,"
he said, adding, "This results in individuals being extremely frustrated."
"It's
preventing students from coming to school on time for classes," Sarah
Taylor, associate director of the ISSO, said earlier this fall when the
ISSO knew of only four students experiencing visa difficulties. "There
is a disconnect between the policymakers and the institutional side,"
Tudisco said. "The inquiries have been met with ‘we're sorry, it
just takes time,’ hence my concern about not the process but the speed
and the people." "We
hope the State Department puts resources into doing this so that an indefinite
waiting period for our students doesn't result," he said. This
is not the first time the government has had to release software to track
visa-toting students. In July, the Immigration and Naturalization Service
released software to implement Sevis, a visa-tracking mechanism. Some
colleges complained the software was riddled with bugs. Because of this,
Tudisco questions the quality of the software that will be released to
speed the visa application process. This
year, 85 percent of Columbia students who applied for visas received them,
which is similar to previous years. Nevertheless, Tudisco said, the process
is trying. "It's about more hardship, anxiety, and it's causing our students to be in limbo for a long period of time," he said.
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