President Bush is urging the U.S. Senate to take action within the week on a bill that would establish a more sophisticated tracking system of international students, according to an announcement from White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.
The Senate will leave for recess at the end of the week.
The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2001 was introduced last November and passed the U.S. House of Representatives in December. It equires monitoring of foreign students and exchange visitors to ensure they maintain their status,"" Fleischer said during Tuesday's White House briefing.
""We, along with other members of higher education, are supportive of this effort to find a compromise that enables us to do a better job of tracking students,"" said Rhonda Norsetter, UW-Madison senior special assistant to the chancellor and director of federal relations.
Currently, when an international student applies to study in the United States, the university must issue a document that the student then takes to an embassy to obtain a visa, which explains where the student will be studying, for how long and other details. The embassy then sends the documentation to its immigration services to retain for federal records.
The bill would establish an electronic database for international student information, which is currently kept in paper form. The system will cost approximately $39 million.
But one fear some members of the higher education community have with this type of legislation is the possiblity of added conditions that may infringe on international students' rights, according to Sheila Spear, director of the UW-Madison Office of International Student Services.
""Once it gets to Congress, we worry they will add other bits of information,"" Spear said. ""We were sort of hoping [the bill] would go through very fast before anybody noticed and started hanging on other things.""
The legislation is a response to a previous bill sponsored by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., which called for a six-month moratorium, or delay, on all student visas.
U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., said he is in favor of the new bill.
""The tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, have exposed some weaknesses and inconsistencies within our nation's visa programs,"" Kohl said in a statement Tuesday. ""[The bill] would clarify and streamline the process by which foreign students are admitted to the United States.""
The bill has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Kohl is a member.
Congress initially began to fear the potential of some international students being terrorists after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, according to Spear.
""They passed legislation, which we all absolutely loathe, to increase the already extensive monitoring of international students in this country,"" she said. ""And that's what this office and every other international office in the United States does.""
Spear also said one of the most influential people in terms of making sure institutions of higher education are comfortable with the bill has been former UW-Madison Chancellor David Ward, who now serves as president of American Council on Education.
