Foreign Students Hustle to Find New Academic Homes

Disruptions caused by Katrina put them at risk of visa violations

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By BURTON BOLLAG

From her ground-floor dormitory room at the University of New Orleans, Hind Bouachrine could not see Lake Pontchartrain; it sat heavily above a grassy slope two blocks away. But with Hurricane Katrina's expected arrival just two days ahead, the Moroccan student thought it was safer to spend the night at a friend's apartment on higher ground.

The next day, when local authorities ordered an evacuation of New Orleans, Ms. Bouachrine, a junior majoring in French and Spanish, jumped into a car with two friends and joined the heavy traffic heading out of town. With no time to pack, she carried nothing more than her passport and the clothes she was wearing.

"It was a nightmare" waking up the next day to television images of the floods that she fears probably destroyed her dormitory, along with all her possessions, she says. "All the life I built up for the last two years is lost."

Ms. Bouachrine, who is now temporarily enrolled at Smith College, where her sister was just hired as an assistant professor of Spanish, is one of an estimated 3,000 to 4,600 foreign students forced to flee from hurricane-ravaged institutions on the Gulf Coast. They face a future more precarious than that of many of their American classmates.

While the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has loosened some of its rules for foreign students, other cumbersome regulations remain. The students must enroll at another college within 30 days of the originally scheduled start of their classes, or else leave the country. They must take a full course load at their new college, cannot work off the campus, and can sign up for only one online course per semester. College administrators worry that those limitations could put many foreign students at risk of visa violations.

Advisers to international students say they have received no responses to their requests for a relaxation of the rules.

"The individuals I've talked to [in the immigration service of the Department of Homeland Security] have been very helpful," says Debbie Danna, who is responsible for the 200 foreign students who were enrolled at Loyola University New Orleans. "But we need answers very quickly, and we're just not getting them."

Asked whether any of the rules would be relaxed, Jamie E. Zuieback, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a homeland-security agency, says only, "We will review each case on a case-by-case basis." She adds, "Our goal is to ensure that students can continue their studies in the United States."

Unorganized Exodus

The international-student advisers are still trying to determine where their students are and what help they need. While many of the colleges in Katrina's path provided buses to evacuate students in the day or two before the hurricane hit, most international students, like their American classmates, scattered in an unorganized exodus from the Gulf Coast. Many fled without possessions -- even passports and other crucial documents.

Since the catastrophe, their worried advisers have been scrambling to find the students. A few freshmen left the country and returned home with parents who had just accompanied them to the United States. Some were invited to the family homes of roommates. Others sought out compatriots studying at undamaged institutions.

Texas A&M University at College Station took in 65 foreign students. Among them was a group from several Central American countries. "They e-mailed friends of theirs studying here asking what they should do," says Suzanne M. Droleskey, head of international-student services. Learning that "our president had announced we would accept 1,000 hurricane students," she says, they promptly headed over.

Lissie B. Mo, a second-year master's student in international development at Tulane University, flew into New Orleans from her native Norway two days before Katrina hit. Late that day, exhausted and anxious, she left the city with a group from the Norwegian Seaman's Church, in New Orleans, and found shelter at a sister church in Dallas.

Only a semester away from graduation, she desperately began looking for an institution where she could finish her studies. "It's been ups and downs emotionally," she says. "You spend all your time online, trying to figure out what to do."

After trying a number of institutions, she contacted Benedictine University, in northeastern Illinois, on the advice of friends studying there, and was accepted. Inspired by her ordeal, she promptly signed up for a disaster-management class.

Some international students stayed behind in New Orleans. "Some of our foreign students were rescued by the Coast Guard from private apartments," says William Lennon, who directs the office that supervises Tulane's 1,400 foreign students and scholars. "Three of our Fulbrighters called out of the Superdome before the phones went dead."

As of press time, Mr. Lennon had had no contact with many of Tulane's foreign students. "Of course we're concerned," he says.

More Students Accounted For

But as cellphones in the hurricane-affected area have slowly begun functioning again, and word has spread about how to contact university officials, more and more foreign students have been accounted for.

"I'm hearing now from colleges all over the country" that have accepted Tulane's foreign students, says Mr. Lennon. He and other officials report that colleges have greeted the evacuees with open arms. Many are not asking for any tuition or fees from those who have already paid for their studies at storm-ravaged institutions.

Colleges are providing accommodations, donated clothes, even spending money. Fraternities and sororities are offering rooms. Associations of students of various nationalities are welcoming their evacuated compatriots.

Peiming Lu, an official at the Chinese consulate in Houston, says associations of Chinese students and scholars at American colleges have helped Chinese evacuees from the Gulf Coast. The largest number of overseas students in the United States is from China.

Many are graduate students, whose research projects have been disrupted and who "are badly in need of work" to earn money, Mr. Lu says. But U.S. regulations prevent students from working off campus, he notes.

Like their students, international-student advisers have found refuge where they could. "We have colleagues scattered from Miami to Dallas," says Mr. Lennon of his staff from Tulane. "They're working out of coffee shops on laptop computers." He fled with his family to Atlanta, where he is staying with nine other people in his sister's house.

A Double Burden

Colleges accepting foreign students have had the double burden of finding appropriate classes for them and hunting down advisers from their stricken institutions. Federal regulations require that when a foreign student transfers from one college to another, the originating institution must first register the move in a Web-based system known as the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or Sevis.

The Department of Homeland Security, which administers Sevis, has loosened its requirements, allowing institutions to provisionally enroll foreign students from hurricane-affected institutions even if their original advisers cannot be located immediately.

College officials say that flexibility is helpful but not nearly enough. To stay in compliance with federal regulations, foreign students must carry a full course load. But having suddenly washed up on new campuses, "some students can't find a full schedule of classes relevant to their degree," says Ms. Droleskey, of Texas A&M.

There are other issues. Some study programs from disrupted institutions continue to be available online. But foreign students are not allowed to take more than one online course per semester. And a number of those who lost their possessions in the disaster need to work to earn money. But the ban on off-campus jobs severely limits their options.

Foreign students "are hustling to help themselves and save their educational careers," says Mr. Lennon. "But it's not easy."

Victor C. Johnson, associate executive director for public policy at Nafsa: Association of International Educators, says his group is seeking a clear policy from federal authorities that foreign students will not be penalized as a result of Katrina.

"Students who have been in status as of the day of the hurricane," he says, "should be, in effect, held harmless."