Press Room
Letter to The Washington Post (Jan. 30 2003)
30 January 2003
To the Editor:
The Post's juxtaposition of two articles on January 30 ("INS Moves to Plug Student Visa Links," "Brookings Scholar Is Detained by INS") neatly captures not only the dilemmas, but the essential dysfunctionality, of visa and immigration law enforcement. On the one hand, a small number of disreputable programs apparently serve as avenues for the fraudulent entry into the United States of people who have no intention of being students. On the other, people who are here perfectly legitimately are arbitrarily detained by the INS for no reason--and, indeed, people who have legitimate reasons to be here can't get visas. Both problems need to be fixed.
Most schools – including most English-language schools – are legitimate, and seek to enroll legitimate students. They, more than anyone, want the tiny minority of fly-by-night outfits shut down. The illegitimate programs threaten the legitimacy of foreign student exchanges that we believe--and every secretary of state since World War II has affirmed--serve important national interests. They obscure the reality that more than 80 percent of the foreign students in this country are enrolled in fewer than 500 schools, all of which would be instantly recognized by any American as legitimate higher education institutions.
They also obscure the reality that while some individuals may manage to secure visas fraudulently, there are also many legitimate students who are denied visas for arbitrary reasons, thus denying our country the opportunity to participate in educating future leaders across the globe. And in recent months, legitimate students who did secure visas and are enrolled in school have been subjected to arbitrary detention by the INS during "special registration."
Our country needs a system that (1) gives legitimate students timely access to the United States for enrollment in legitimate programs, and (2) weeds out illegitimate students and shuts down illegitimate schools. We will only get there if we find a way to focus on the problems. If we treat everyone as if they were the schools and students that you focus on in your article, we will get what we have now: administrative gridlock that serves neither educational exchange nor enforcement.
Sincerely,
Marlene M. Johnson
Executive Director and CEO
NAFSA: Association of International Educators
To the Editor:
The Post's juxtaposition of two articles on January 30 ("INS Moves to Plug Student Visa Links," "Brookings Scholar Is Detained by INS") neatly captures not only the dilemmas, but the essential dysfunctionality, of visa and immigration law enforcement. On the one hand, a small number of disreputable programs apparently serve as avenues for the fraudulent entry into the United States of people who have no intention of being students. On the other, people who are here perfectly legitimately are arbitrarily detained by the INS for no reason--and, indeed, people who have legitimate reasons to be here can't get visas. Both problems need to be fixed.
Most schools – including most English-language schools – are legitimate, and seek to enroll legitimate students. They, more than anyone, want the tiny minority of fly-by-night outfits shut down. The illegitimate programs threaten the legitimacy of foreign student exchanges that we believe--and every secretary of state since World War II has affirmed--serve important national interests. They obscure the reality that more than 80 percent of the foreign students in this country are enrolled in fewer than 500 schools, all of which would be instantly recognized by any American as legitimate higher education institutions.
They also obscure the reality that while some individuals may manage to secure visas fraudulently, there are also many legitimate students who are denied visas for arbitrary reasons, thus denying our country the opportunity to participate in educating future leaders across the globe. And in recent months, legitimate students who did secure visas and are enrolled in school have been subjected to arbitrary detention by the INS during "special registration."
Our country needs a system that (1) gives legitimate students timely access to the United States for enrollment in legitimate programs, and (2) weeds out illegitimate students and shuts down illegitimate schools. We will only get there if we find a way to focus on the problems. If we treat everyone as if they were the schools and students that you focus on in your article, we will get what we have now: administrative gridlock that serves neither educational exchange nor enforcement.
Sincerely,
Marlene M. Johnson
Executive Director and CEO
NAFSA: Association of International Educators
