Foreign students facing delays in getting visas

America's war on terrorism is hitting home with international students who are finding it harder to get visas to study in the United States.

"It's really tough," said Shobnom Ferdous, a Southeast Missouri State University graduate student in biology from the Asian nation of Bangladesh.

Ferdous said her sister and brother-in-law and a friend were admitted to Southeast for this fall semester but couldn't secure the necessary visas from the U.S. Consulate to travel overseas.

Ferdous finds it frustrating. "They are not terrorists," she said.

Ferdous, a Muslim, said male Muslims particularly find it hard to get visas.

But the tougher scrutiny applies to more than Muslims. Other international students at Southeast also say it takes longer to get visas at American consulates from Argentina to Taiwan.

Adelaide Parsons, director of Southeast's international programs, said international students there haven't reported any major visa problems to her and she didn't know of any new or returning students who couldn't come because of visa or immigration problems.

But the United States is checking visa applications more closely in the aftermath of last September's terrorist attacks, the nation's colleges and the State Department report.

The problem is being keenly felt at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

"We had a number of students who had a great deal of difficulty getting back. Some are still stranded," said Carla Coppi, associate director of international students and scholars.

Five returning students and 30 to 50 new students are still battling visa problems that have kept them from getting to Carbondale, she said.

Those caught in the visa hassle include a student from Bolivia who had planned to finish her master's degree in business administration this fall, Coppi said.

At Purdue University in Indiana, more than 30 of the school's international students remained stuck in their home countries last week.

Some schools have had trouble finding teaching assistants after foreign graduate students were unable to enter the United States in time for the start of fall classes, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, a national monthly trade publication.

Six to eight weeks

New background checks -- including the checking of fingerprints -- implemented this summer have delayed issuance of visas, she said.

"The background checks are taking six to eight weeks," Coppi said.

Those who face the most scrutiny, Coppi said, are male students ages 18 to 45 from countries identified by the State Department as countries suspected of supporting terrorism. Those 26 countries include Iran, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.

Three of the Sept. 11 hijackers held student visas, as did the man who was convicted of driving a van full of explosives to the World Trade Center to be detonated in 1993.

Still, many students are passing the test and making it to the states.

SIU and the University of Missouri-Columbia have reported slight increases in the number of international students, and the numbers could have been even higher if it weren't for stricter visa rules.

SIU has about 1,500 international students on campus this fall.

Southeast has 235 international students, down from 243 a year ago.

School officials had expected to have about 270 international students this fall, but some of the students who studied here last year didn't return.

"Some left because they had academic or financial trouble," said Parsons. "Others just left and didn't tell us."

Some students transferred to other U.S. colleges.

The university has eight students from Pakistan, but Southeast hasn't recruited students from the Middle East, she said, explaining why the university may be seeing fewer visa problems than other schools.

Harder after Sept. 11

International students at Southeast who obtained visas before last year's terrorist attacks report few problems.

Mariangeles Flores, a graduate student from Argentina, enrolled at Southeast last fall to seek a master's in business administration. She had no trouble in July 2001 getting a visa from the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires.

She said she just showed up and stood in a long line with others seeking visas. No appointment was required.

"I didn't have any kind of problem," she said. She received her visa in a week.

But Flores said it's far more difficult now. Argentines now must schedule an appointment to present their paperwork to consulate officials.

Flores said her mother, father and sister had planned to fly to the United States this summer to visit her. But her sister's passport was delayed, forcing the family to miss the scheduled visa appointment. Flores said her family had to cancel the trip because consulate officials said the next available appointment was in a month and a half.

Flores said international students are finding it easier to get enrolled in American colleges than to get the visas to travel there. But international students, she said, typically can find a number of schools that will accept them.

"I think students are more worried about the visa than the school," she said.

Visa bar code

And it could get even more difficult. The U.S. plans to implement a new Internet-based system on Jan. 30 designed to keep closer tabs on international students.

Under the system, Parsons said, colleges will supply information about international student applicants to the government. The government will issue a bar code for each student and enter the information into government computers. The bar code will be attached to the visa application that a school sends to the prospective student.

The student then must present that application and the original supporting documentation to the U.S. Consulate.

"There is less chance for forgery or stealing documents," Parsons said of the system.

But the process means more work for universities and likely longer delays, she said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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