Hearing of House Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness and Subcommittee on Select Education - Tracking International Students in Higher Ed...

HEARING OF THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21st CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS AND SUBCOMMITTEE ON SELECT EDUCATION: TRACKING INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A PROGRESS REPORT

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We'll, I'm a little baffled, based on the last discussion. I have some other questions. But I serve on the International Relations Committee, and we had a hearing on the 9/11 Commission, including some staff and then talking to people from the State Department, and they pretty much contradict--and I'll submit it for the record, Mr. Chair--what we just heard about how Homeland Security through SEVIS has just kept America safe from attacks and all these terrorists have been weeded out.

I think it's important that we secure our borders. I think it's important we know who's coming in. But either they don't have any correct information under the Freedom of Information Act, or you have something that's been classified or whatever, but I agree with the gentleman. I think we need to see documentation.

The biggest concern that we were hearing in the International Relations Committee was just having the regular tourist visas and the passport and all the enhancements that we were trying to get in place in airport security as people enter and go back and forth between countries, there's a group of countries that we have a different standard for tourists alone in it.

So I would very, very much be interested in seeing your documentation, sir.

I have some questions that I'm going to submit from my colleagues into the record, as well as some statements that they have.

But I just want to take this in a big picture here now, both from State and Homeland Security.

You folks have all been asked, especially the Department of State, has been asked to do a lot out of hide. Your budget has
not increased with all the different demands that Congress and the world changes since September 11th has put onto you. I know you have employees that are working extraordinarily hard. But to that point, you have in your testimony that we have more people in the consular offices, that the budget has been increased.

And I would very much be interested--and maybe you can't answer this off the top of your head now, so you can submit it later--as to all this increased staffing with the embassies--because I travel abroad quite a bit, with all the demands that State has been asked to put on, I mean, really, how many hours of those individuals' time in the countries that we had the most foreign student applications, how have we really beefed that up?

And what is in the President's budget that went directly on the bottom line to help you fulfill this mission? If you don't have that with you today, as you didn't have--we don't have the numbers of the exact visa--I would be very interested in seeing
that.

[The information referred to has been retained in the Committee's official files.]

I have a question, and it has to do with going back to getting the clerical errors taken care of. And I would like DHS to really walk me through, if a college--College X finds that in reviewing something that they really checked very inadvertently something off in the wrong box, and it's brought to their attention--how quick is the turnaround before that is fixed?

Mr. Cerda. That can be done within days, if not that same period right there, that same day. What it's--the technical fixes are pretty straightforward on our side. What may take some time in the oddest cases is verification of whether that is in fact a genuine termination or not, if there are other issues pertaining to that. But if it was a clerical error on a student at a university, that should be handled pretty quickly in terms of days.

Ms. McCollum. When you talked about how students faced difficult challenges for saying where their residence is, I have college-age students, and I receive their mail, but my son is studying abroad right now. My daughter stays--is living with friends and things like that. So it's really challenging even for college students here.

How--one of the things that I have heard from embassy staff, and my heavens, I can certainly appreciate it--when things get to be a little gray, you don't want to be the person who signed off on saying, well, I accepted this for a residency and then have perhaps that person come under review for being a terrorist or something like that. How clear are those directions to staff?

And the reason why I bring it up is with the AIDS orphan population that is just exploding in Africa and us wanting to reach out more and more to Africa to keep that country stable and from becoming a haven for terrorists, how specifically addressed is that, or can you get me some information as to exactly what that question looks like and how you handle the issue of someone who might be an AIDS orphan?

Mr. Tiberi [presiding]. The gentlelady's time has expired, but go ahead and answer the question.

Mr. Edson. Thank you. And it is complicated, because situations will vary with each applicant. They'll vary with every country. So our consular officers have the ability on the ground as they gain experience in the country and work with their colleagues who have been there longer to analyze the cases in a way that's fair based on the circumstances. What's normal in one country might be completely--we have countries in the world where being wealthy is actually the first sign that that person is likely to jump to the United States and stay illegally, and other countries where the opposite is true.

So we allow consular officers broad discretion to apply the law, taking into account local circumstances, so that it's fair as possible to the applicant. At the same time, the law, the Immigration and Nationality Act, does place the burden on the applicant to prove that they qualify for the visa. We're not doing that for them, so they'll have to come in and make their best case, and then we interpret it based on local circumstances.

It is a hard call in many places such as the countries of Africa where you mentioned. But visas are issued everywhere, even the poorest countries in the world, there are applicants who qualify every day.

Mr. Hite. Congresswoman, if I could add to your question about the time it takes to make some of these data base fixes, I'd point to what we have in our statement in talking to some of these educational organizations about those data fixes. And
depending on visa type, it varies, but what we were told is that there are times when data fixes take months, even over a year to fix. So it's not a matter of days in all cases.

And so, I'm sure one's position on that is going to depend on where they sit. And I think from your next panel, you may hear about some of those.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source