NAFSA Comments on State Department Proposed Rule Re: Training and Internship Programs

May 17, 2006

On May 16, NAFSA submitted a comment letter to the U.S. State Department's Exchange Visitor Program regarding the April 7 proposed rule, "Exchange Visitor Program - Training and Internship Programs." The letter focuses on how the changes would eliminate all current and future opportunities for foreign postsecondary students to participate in training and internship experiences in the United States, as well as eliminate some opportunities for U.S. postsecondary students to participate in similar experiences abroad.

NAFSA members are urged to send their own personalized comment letters regarding the proposed changes via NAFSA's "Take Action Center." Just click "Urge Congress and the State Dept to Withdraw Proposed Training and Intern Rule" and follow the instructions.

Deadline for submitting comments to the State Department is June 6, 2006.

NAFSA's May 16 Comment Letter

PDF version (88kb )

May 16, 2006


U.S. Department of State
Office of Exchange Coordination and Designation
SA-44
301 4th Street, S.W., Room 734
Washington, D.C. 20547

Subject: 1400-AC15, Exchange Visitor Program – Training and Internship Programs

To Whom It May Concern:

I write on behalf of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the world’s largest association of international education professionals with more than 9,000 members throughout the United States and worldwide, in opposition to the above-referenced proposed rule. The proposed rule is essentially unusable, as it would eliminate all current and future opportunities for foreign postsecondary students to participate in training and internship experiences in the United States, as well as eliminate some opportunities for U.S. postsecondary students to participate in similar experiences abroad.

NAFSA, along with the exchange visitor community, spent nearly six years engaged in discussions with the State Department’s Exchange Visitor Program about the creation of an “intern” category. It was our understanding from these discussions that a very different proposed rule would be forthcoming, one that would address most of the needs requested by the academic and exchange communities. We are both disappointed and puzzled by what has been proposed here, as it resembles none of the contents of these discussions. The rule, as proposed, also runs counter to what President Bush, Secretary of State Rice, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Hughes, and congressional leaders from both parties have asserted publicly on numerous occasions—that exchanges, especially those involving young people, are our most vital public diplomacy asset.

We therefore urge the State Department to withdraw this rule and to work with the constituencies of this program to craft a regulation that will support our nation’s long-term public diplomacy interests.

The rule is unworkable in the following ways:

Current Foreign Postsecondary Students are Ineligible to Participate

Without any justification or explanation, the rule would limit the intern experience only to recent graduates and excludes current students by narrowly defining an intern as:

A foreign college or university level graduate who, within 12 months following graduation, enters the United States to participate in a structured and guided period of work-based learning related to the specific field in which he or she earned a degree.

The supplementary information correctly points out, “Bridging the gap between formal education and practical work experience is a major theme in educational institutions around the world,” but it fails to recognize that students in today’s world typically bridge this gap by pursuing internship opportunities throughout their academic experience—during the academic year, during the break between academic years, or immediately following the completion of their degree. In fact, more and more academic institutions overseas (particularly in Europe) are requiring their students to pursue an “international” internship experience prior to graduation. If these proposed changes were put into effect, thousands of foreign students would be cut off from the opportunity to travel to the United States for an internship. Instead, they likely would pursue internships in countries other than the United States—a real loss for U.S. public diplomacy.

Academic institutions in particular had hoped to be able to use the intern category to sponsor foreign postsecondary students on their campuses for internships that would correspond directly to the student’s academic program overseas, such as an internship working directly with a faculty member on a short-term research project. As most academic institutions do not hold a training designation, the only way currently for schools to facilitate such a program is to bring in an intern via a third-party sponsor designated under the training category. However, the rule proposes to require that all training applicants have at least three years of prior work-related experience, meaning these third-party sponsors would no longer be able to sponsor current students, as very few, if any, would have the requisite three years of prior experience. Thus, under the rule, schools would lose what few interns they are currently able to bring in.

U.S. Students Would Also Be Negatively Impacted

The proposed rule not only would cut off opportunities for foreign students to pursue internships in the United States, it also would cut off opportunities for U.S. students to pursue internships overseas. Many of the exchange program providers that U.S. students use to secure an internship overseas depend on reciprocal exchanges in which foreign postsecondary students are placed in internships in the United States. Because of their reciprocal nature, these programs have for decades served the broad Fulbright-Hays mandate of building mutual understanding by offering foreign nationals the opportunity to travel to the United States as well as offering U.S. nationals the opportunity to travel abroad. This proposed rule would force many of these programs to eliminate overseas internship offerings to U.S. postsecondary students if, in turn, they are not able to offer U.S. internship opportunities to foreign postsecondary students. There is also the added risk, when enacting such a restrictive policy against foreign postsecondary students, that a foreign country will opt to do the same against U.S. postsecondary students wishing to intern in their country. In this day and age, when the need is critical for fostering greater mutual understanding and enhancing global competitiveness, it seems very shortsighted to eliminate such opportunities for both international and U.S. students.

Requirement to Interview All Applicants Overseas Prior to Arrival Is Costly and Unworkable

The proposed rule would require that all training and intern sponsors “conduct in-person interviews with potential trainees or interns in their home countries.” This requirement would be cost-prohibitive and unworkable for academic institutions. Academic institutions would be forced to take on additional expenses, either in hiring additional staff at the institution to send overseas or in arranging with a third-party organization overseas to conduct the interview, making the cost outweigh the benefit. Academic institutions have selected and hosted thousands of exchange visitors successfully for decades, without an in-person, home country interview prior to selection. Therefore we fail to see the added benefit of such a requirement for the intern category.

Linking the Training and Intern Programs Is Problematic for Academic Institutions

The rule, as proposed, appears to couple the training and intern categories together, with the intern category described as a “subcategory within the regulations governing trainees.” This description, if accurate, would be problematic, for the vast majority of academic institutions in this country neither have nor wish to apply for a training designation, therefore rendering the category unusable.

Conclusion

NAFSA shares the State Department’s interest in improving its regulations in order to strengthen its programs and advance U.S. public diplomacy interests. However, this proposed rule neither improves the current program nor enhances U.S. public diplomacy interests. It makes no sense to limit participation so narrowly at a time when we need to be reaching out to build better relationships around the globe and to attract the world’s best and brightest to bolster our competitive edge.

Attached is a document* originally submitted by the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange (of which NAFSA is a member) to the State Department’s Exchange Visitor Program in late 2004 outlining the elements of an intern program that we understood met the needs of the State Department as well as the academic and exchange communities. We urge you to take the contents of this document into consideration when rewriting this proposed rule.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment.

Sincerely,


Marlene M. Johnson
Executive Director and CEO

Mail: e-mail: jexchanges@state.gov, fax: 202.203.5087

cc: The Honorable Karen P. Hughes, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and
       Public Affairs, U.S. State Department
     The Honorable Dina Habib Powell, Deputy Under Secretary for Public
       Diplomacy and Public Affairs and Assistant Secretary for Educational
       and Cultural Affairs, U.S. State Department


* This document can be found in the PDF version of this comment letter.