Posted on 09/27/2001 10:27:16 AM PDT by CounterCounterCulture
Posted at
BY MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wants to close U.S. borders to new foreign students for six months to give immigration authorities time to put in place initial background checks and a tracking system once students are in this country.
The proposal was prompted by the discovery that a suspected hijacker in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks entered the country with a student visa. Hani Hanjour, suspected of being on the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon, said he would study English at Holy Names College in Oakland, Calif., but never enrolled.
``I know this isn't politically correct, but what has happened ... indicates I think serious caution is a prudent thing on our part,'' Feinstein said in an interview Wednesday.
Feinstein, who plans to introduce her proposal in coming weeks, would suspend student visas for six months while the Immigration and Naturalization Service readied a system of performing background checks on applicants for student visas.
Foreign students apply to U.S. schools from their home countries, then go to the nearest U.S. consulate or embassy to apply for a visa. The State Department decides whether a visa should be issued, but Feinstein said it is crucial to have INS involved in the screening process.
Her legislation also will call for giving the INS $32.3 million for a computerized monitoring system to track foreign students once they are in the country. The system would apply to the nearly 600,000 foreign students at U.S. colleges and universities.
Congress authorized such a database in response to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. But the program languished amid political opposition and remains only a pilot project involving 25 schools in the Southeast.
The database program, which is supposed to be fully operational by 2003, would require schools to report any change in a foreign student's status, such as enrollment, change of major or a move to a new address.
``Our country is a sieve,'' Feinstein said. ``These visas are being misused and the time has come to do something about it.''
The University of Southern California, New York University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have the highest number of foreign students, according to the American Council on Education. Its members include most accredited American colleges and universities.
David Ward, the council's president, said he opposes a suspension of visas, but supports a tracking system and stepped-up screening of visa applicants.
``Our view would be that since student visas are only 2 percent of the total, it really isn't solving the security problem,'' Ward said. ``People can come as visitors and in many other ways.''
Ward said similar legislation proposed by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., would tighten screening and hold institutions more accountable for their foreign students without shutting down the visa program.
Meanwhile, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said Wednesday she would propose legislation to bring back the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration to aid the battered travel industry in attracting foreign visitors to the United States. The Republican-led Congress abolished the agency and its $16 million annual budget in 1996.
If there ever was a place from which we can expect a chemical or biological attack, it is from the biology and chemistry labs at university, where the many, many students giving help and aid to the terrorists, are.
If they attempt to remove the pellet, signals go out and the Rangers pick them up for immediate deportation.
When they time of visiting is up, the Rangers are able to make sure they get their arses out of the country.
That, of course, doesn't help with the illegal aliens....but I daresay buckshot would control that. Oops, not politically PC---hell, dive bombing WTC and Pentagon wasn't politically correct either!
If brought back, will it be a branch of the Office of Homeland Security?
Somebody alert "Reverend" Al!
In no way is this an infringement on their civil liberties. They are here as our guests, and should respect us enough and what's happened here to feel obliged to report to us their whereabouts.
Deport all these idiot Arab students, then try the professors and their chairmen for treason.
Deport aliens!
This little nasty tidbit at the end of the article caught my eye..... I don't want my tax dollars spent to bring in foreign visitors.
I hate it when I have a Senator for an Idiot.
Lets close the borders to all illegal aliens and any so called alien college student not here! Any alien college student here now should be thoroughly investigated!
Then every illegal alien, brown, yellow, white, black, red, pink or rainbow should be rounded up and checked out. Those not implicated in 9/11 or past flag burning/hate America activities should be returned to their home country immediately! They should be warned, that if they are caught back in this country again as illegal aliens, they will be locked up in Alaska for the duration of this war on terrorism! Those involved in the 9/11 mass murder of 7,000 Americans should be tried for murder and executed!
I know, here we have Fineswine wanting to control and monitor foreigners and in the same breath spend my money to bring in more.
Complete j@ckass to the end.
So it takes this long for this "mud fence dumb" woman to notice that immigration has been a problem? God, how it must have galled her to have to be politically incorrect for once.
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