International students at UW-Madison will be subjected to \another layer of inquiry"" as a result of President Bush's executive order Monday to tighten controls on students' visas, Sheila Spear said Tuesday. Spear is the director of UW-Madison International Student Services.
""He's put another whole layer of investigation in an area where we thought there was already investigation being done,"" Spear said.
The presidential order signed by Bush created a Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, which will work to prevent terrorists from entering the United States and find them if they do. The order also mandates a review of current student visa policies ""to prohibit the education and training of foreign nationals who would use their training to harm the United States and its allies,"" according to a ""fact sheet"" released by the Bush administration.
""We don't quite know why [Bush] thought it was necessary to set up any task force,"" Spear said, adding that she was concerned the task force did not include any higher education representatives. ""We don't know what's going to come out of it.""
She said she was also concerned that the formation of the task force is a prelude to tighter restrictions, or even a moratorium, on student visas.
Most of the information currently collected on international students by the federal government has been asked for since the McCarthy era. Students here on student visas must be enrolled full-time and must report their academic information, such as when they change their major, Spear said.
The ""Patriot Bill"" passed by both houses of Congress last week included money for implementation of an electronic tracking system on foreign students that was approved by Congress after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
""We thought that was it,"" Spear said.
UW-Madison junior Amy Wells said she can understand why international students would not want to have too much information about them exposed, but said it makes sense that non-citizens do not have all of the same rights as U.S. citizens.
""Things have changed a little bit right now,"" said Wells, a member of International Students Resources, an international student organization.
