U.S. Senator Calls for Tougher Student-Visa Regulations

Uh oh. If we’re not careful we could toss out the bathwater, the baby and the tub.  There are few things as culturally positive for an institution as enrolling international students.

Previous CHE article:  “Also like Tri-Valley, Northern Virginia has students who live in other states, some as far away as New York and Ohio. Federal regulations say that foreign students must be physically present on campus.”  NVU looks more like a dirty, Chinese, fast food take out restaurant than a university.

Congratulations Charles Grassley.  Fight the good fight. Some universities more nearly resemble an immigrant recruitment camp than an institution of learning.  Close all illegal, unaccredited, foreign recruitment  institutions operating under the flagrant disguise of higher education.

Grassley is obviously not a fan of inclusion & diversity and seems to not understand the value of foreign students at U.S. academic institutions. These students bring different perspectives to the classroom, expose U.S. students to the world outside America (and thereby enrich their education) and most do not qualify for financial aid from public universities (they do qualify at private non-profit schools, but many choose not to apply for aid because they fear that this will reduce their chances of being admitted). 

Some years ago, restrictions were placed on high school students from South Korea who might have wanted to attend Deerefield, Hotchkiss, etc. Other countries were happy to accommodate them. 

A good college/university will carefully and rigorously assess a foreign student’s ability to pay, check his background and solicit recommendations. An I-20 issued by a college does not guarantee a student visa. The student still requires approval from a U.S. consulate/embassy in his home country where further background checks are conducted before an F1 visa is eventually issued. 

It seems to me that the issue here is not the foreign students but those fly-by-night institutions that are either for profit or unaccredited — these are the problem and most foreign students that end up at one of those institutions are the victims because they may be misled to believe that a college’s “membership” in an accrediting body does not mean accreditation. 

Some foreign students also do not appreciate the difference between national and regional accreditation. The solution would be to require those “unheard of”, “unaccredited” colleges to fully disclose their lack of accreditation on all of their promotional material by some consumer protection agency. Elizabeth Warren is the go-to person.

Finally, there is another benefit to the U.S. from having foreign students: they become important alumni donors, stay loyal to their institution and they “defend” America when they are back home because they can read beyond the headlines.

I was a foreign student and I am extremely appreciative of the education I received. I did not work (I was too busy studying) and did not attempt to get a green card. I left when I completed my studies, but I continue to support my two alma maters in California in several different ways. My former U.S.-based employer did ask me to relocate to the the U.S. for an assignment at one point in my career and the employer did offer to apply for a green card on my behalf, but I did not avail myself of this opportunity. I returned to my overseas location once I had completed the project. 

The majority of foreign students that I know ended up returning to their home countries, often working for U.S. corporations or their governments and by so doing improving the relationship between their home country and the U.S.

Those issues (and I would wager all such abuses) seem to be more a problem of enforcement than regulation. Such regulation will only harm those institutions who are seeking to be reputable.

Anyone who thinks that SEVIS solved the problem has another thing coming to them.   SEVIS is simply a limited information gathering system, that’s all.  It really only records whether students are in class or in practical training as they are supposed to be.  What ICE or any other agency does with that information is up to them (and it’s generally nothing).   The real barriers to terrorists in the student visa system are at the point of the consular interview (done by dept. of state employees in the student’s home country), and at the entry points (done by Customs and Border Patrol).   After that, unless ICE has evidence ahead of time that a student is up to no good, they don’t even generally follow up if a student skips town and heads out across the country.   The schools don’t even have a way to really waive a red flag since there is no current way to tell if a student went home or if they are still in the US (the exit information field hasn’t been working reliably for over a year and a half now).   Sure there’s a lot of paperwork that folks have to do for international students, but most of it involves getting approval for practical training and legally extending the stay of a student who is attending classes in the first place.   To top it all off, the schools are finally getting recertified for the first time since SEVIS was implemented even though this was supposed to be done on a 5 year basis according to the enacting legislation.  
The reality of it all is though, while student visas have gotten a lot of attention, at the time of the attack none of the attackers were in the US on student visas, the ones that had active student visas were forced to enter on a tourist visa because they weren’t currently taking classes.  Oddly enough, even though the student visa system actually worked, the tourist visa system didn’t, but we haven’t really done that much to revise that process to my knowledge,and there’s been no press coverage.
Ultimately if you think we can just build 50,000 foot high walls with gates in them for authorized aircraft and ring the country with a moat that has laser armed sharks, you’re kidding yourself.    The world is out there and it’s not coming to get you.

Northern Virginia is in many ways like Union of Cincinnati (that did got get accreditation until 2005) and U Phoenix (that has been in and out of court more times than most degree mills).  The problem is they sell their “education” then those who were suckered into paying for it found that no one would hire them, their “degrees” worthless. A university is only as good as its faculty and where they obtained what degrees, its library, and its charter–there are too many bogus places that try to put its “graduates” into a job where they do not fit (as with GW Bush whose DOJ hired numerous Regent U lawyers–when 60% could not pass the bar, Regent’s Coburn School of Law coming from the discredited Coburn School of Law Oral Roberts U where  Michel Bachmann started her “law education” before transferring to Regent [she claims that she is a tax attorney]), as with Bob Jones U and others that pass as institutions of credibility.