Statement on the Student Visa Debate
By Dr. Allan E. Goodman, President and CEO
INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION

January 2002

Open Doors and the National Interest

Eighty years ago, the Institute of International Education led a national effort to assist international students who encountered problems with the U.S. immigration system. At the time, many were being detained at Ellis Island because U.S. law classified them as immigrants subject to the highly restrictive quotas imposed in 1917. The Institute took the position that such students were really temporary visitors and succeeded in having them so classified in 1921. The Institute then developed a standard application form and process for foreign students so they could be easily identified and processed by university officials as well as by U.S. consular officers. We also published for many years a Guide Book for Foreign Students in the United States that explained the immigration laws and advised on how best to cope with them in planning for academic studies here.

Throughout this period, we worked closely with Members of Congress and the Commissioners of what were then the Bureaus of Immigration and of Education, as well as with officials in the Department of State. We did this, as the first president of the Institute wrote, because "our experience... justifies the belief that international good-will can hardly fail to result from the coming of the foreign student" and that "upon them, to a great extent, may depend the attitude adopted by their countrymen towards our country."

Nothing has happened to change this belief -- or to make mutual understanding any less important. And so we are again engaged in a national debate advocating keeping our doors open for students, scholars, and other professionals with valid educational purposes.

Based on more than 50 years of experience in administering the Fulbright Program on behalf of the Department of State we know that educational exchange contributes directly to making the world safer and more secure. An educational experience in America, moreover, pays dividends to the nation's public diplomacy over many years. More than 50 of the world leaders called by President Bush and Secretary Powell to join the coalition fighting terrorism studied in the United States or came to America early in their careers as part of the International Visitors Program which we also assist the Department in administering.

We recognize that our nation must make some hard choices in determining the kind of society we want to have in a post-September 11 world. Recently, heated policy debate and extensive media coverage have focused on how to balance the need to eliminate the potential for abuse of student visas with the desire to maintain legitimate academic and cultural exchange for the many students who study here, get to know our people, and often become life-long friends for America when they return. We must find a way to balance these two mandates.

We at the Institute of International Education support urgent action to increase scrutiny of student visas. We must have an effective system that incorporates the kinds of reporting systems and requirements embodied in the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2001. This bipartisan bill, sponsored by Senators Diane Feinstein, Edward Kennedy, Jon Kyl, and Sam Brownback, addresses the gaps in the current student visa system, providing for heightened vigilance at U.S. consulates and better communication between the campuses and government. We also endorse the House version of this bill, H.R. 3525, and hope a conference early in 2002 will result in the passage of this Act. In addition, we commend the inclusion in the new anti-terror legislation of financing for the computerized tracking system (now known as SEVIS) that colleges and the INS have been piloting for the past few years.

During the debate on this legislation we will also make clear that we do not support allowing students to overstay their visas or remain in the United States when they are "out of status." Those who do should be subject to the full enforcement powers of the INS. The good news is that the overwhelming majority of the 547,867 foreign students in this country are in legal visa status and engaged in the studies and research they came here to pursue. This is due to the professionalism of the nationwide network of foreign student advisors who work diligently and year-round to sort out the complex visa requirements and each student's unique personal circumstances.

What else needs to be done?
Throughout this period of national debate, we urge the Immigration and Naturalization service to communicate regularly and clearly the formalities and the new time constraints likely to be encountered by international students planning on coming to the United States. We will be glad to help disseminate such information on our web site, as well as to the foreign student advisors mentioned above. If it would prove helpful and needed, we would again consider preparing an electronic version of the "Guide Book" as a reference source for students coming from abroad.

The American public also needs better and less-sensationalized information on these matters. They need to be reliably informed about the numbers of international students in the United States, the rigor of the process by which they are admitted to our colleges and universities, and the benefit that their presence here brings to our local communities and to the many American students who will not themselves have a chance to study abroad.

The Institute's annual census of international student mobility, "Open Doors," which we publish with the support of the Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, will thus continue to be made available to the widest possible circle of journalists and others who are writing about trends in higher education. Institute experts from our Higher Education Resources Group will prepare periodic briefings and fact sheets to keep the public informed and we will all work closely with our colleagues at the American Council on Education and the Alliance for Educational and Cultural Exchange as further comment and testimony may be required to assist the Congress in its deliberations over the bills mentioned above and other legislation affecting the non-immigrant student visa.

U.S. leadership in support of international education remains central to the kind of world in which we are going to live. A few weeks after the awful events of September 11th, I had a visit from the director of the ministry of education and research of Germany. We spoke at some length about the need to keep the educational doors of both of our countries as open as possible. After our discussion he wrote that "We learnt from the United States how enriching it is to win the interest and support of the brightest minds from all over the world and we trust in your country to remain as open as it has been in the past. If you closed your borders again ... you would set a model that others would follow all too soon."

America -- and the world -- benefits enormously from the international exchange of people and ideas. Some of the international students that are here today will win the Nobel prizes of the future. In the process they may well cure cancer, discover a vaccine for HIV/AIDS, and become the leaders of the governments upon which ultimate success in the wars against poverty, disease and terrorism will depend. We must remember that much of hatred is born of ignorance and repression, and there is no surer way to break down such barriers than to live, study and build relationships in a culture beyond one's own.