No More Entry?

By Andrew Goldstein and Jodie Morse

Last year, like more than 500,000 other foreigners, a man named Hani Hanjour used a student visa to enter the U.S. He had been accepted to an intensive English course run by ELS Language Centers at Holy Names College in Oakland, Calif., where the basic admission requirement is ability to pay the $1,325 fee. When classes began last November, Hanjour didn't show. Immigration officials, who rarely track the whereabouts of student visa holders, had no idea where he was. The FBI now believes he spent much of his time in San Diego and Maryland, trying to hone his flying skills. But it appears that he resurfaced two weeks ago. It was a man by the same name who piloted American Airlines Flight 77 into the west wall of the Pentagon.

Foreign students have become big business for American colleges. They not only help the schools achieve their diversity targets, but they also nearly always pay full tuition. In California alone last year, 66,000 foreign students paid colleges nearly $700 million in tuition and fees. But after the terrorist attacks of two weeks ago, the open door may start closing. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, suggested a six-month moratorium on the issuance of student visas. Even the American Council on Education, a lobbying group that represents most of the nation's colleges, recognizes that student visa policy will have to change. Says senior vice president Terry Hartle: "We all realize the government will and should be looking at this now."

To win a visa, a foreign student must be accepted by an American college, then pass a cursory interview with a consular official. About 35% get rejected. But once foreign students get to the U.S., there is little attempt to track them. Remarkably, the INS still communicates with colleges via paper and pencil. That should have changed after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, in which the driver of the explosives-filled van was in the U.S. on an expired student visa. In 1995 Congress ordered the creation of a database of all foreign students; colleges would have to tell the INS if a student moves or drops several classes or even switches majors.

It was colleges, not wanting to be turned into agents of the government, that lobbied successfully to delay the measure: implementation is not scheduled until 2003. At the end of last week, though, the Association of International Educators, which has loudly fought against the database, reversed its position. Just not in time to stop Hani Hanjour.

--By Andrew Goldstein and Jodie Morse