Colleges face burden of monitoring international studnets

Colleges face burden of monitoring international students
By ANTONIO PLANAS
Capital News Service
Friday, February 21, 2003

LANSING -- A new federal system to monitor international students will put an additional workload on higher education officials in Michigan.

Through a nationwide database, SEVIS -- the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System -- international college students will have personal information traced by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Western Michigan University has been using the program since early January, said program coordinator Jim Abe. WMU officials estimate it will take 2,500 hours per year to keep track of their international students, he said.

"A little bit annoying is probably an understatement," he said. "We have about 2,200 kids to keep track of."

They come from 100 countries.

SEVIS requires colleges to notify the INS of personal information on international students, such as failure to enroll, change of address or arrests. The INS can then share this information with the CIA, FBI or Homeland Security Department.

In the past, INS obtained such information through a lengthy mail process with cooperation from universities and state agencies.

Lynn Blue, the Grand Valley State University registrar, said the school has been using SEVIS since July, 2002.

Even schools with a small number of international students are feeling the effects, but with the recent state budget cuts, Grand Valley won't add a staff position to maintain the records, Blue said.

"It takes one-quarter of a full time clerk's position, " she said. "But now SEVIS has captured people's attention because every school is required to do all that stinking work."

In 2002, Grand Valley had 354 international students from 46 countries.

Chris Bentley, a press aide for the INS district office in Maryland, said plans for the SEVIS project have been developing since 1996. About 4,000 colleges nationwide are participating in the program.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks sped up the implementation of the system, Bentley said. The Patriot Act of 2001 allocated $36 million from the federal government for the project.

Bentley said implementation of the system will impose different costs for each college.

"There certainly were costs felt by schools," he said. "I speculate that each school will be unique, and the time and costs requirements will differ depending on a variety of factors."

WMU's Abe said the introduction of the system may speed up the process of admitting students into U.S. institutions.

"It does standardize the practice of admittance of international students to universities," he said. "There's not going to be differences between schools on how the process should work."

Wendy Wagenheim, communications director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, said SEVIS may be an unlawful invasion of privacy.

"Like any massive database program, it can be used or misused," she said. "There is a likelihood that this system may one day monitor all students, not just international students. That might not be its purpose, but that might be the result."