Electronic Tracking System Monitors Foreign Students
New York Times – free registration required Electronic Tracking System Monitors Foreign Students.
Mandated after terrorists first bombed the World Trade Center a decade ago and financed after they destroyed it, a vast new electronic tracking system became the central element on Saturday in the government’s effort to keep tabs on nearly a million foreign students and scholars in this country.
Through the system, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or Sevis, schools, colleges and universities will send the federal government the names, addresses, courses and majors of foreign students, as well as information on any disciplinary actions against them.
Institutions that the government has not yet certified to log on to the system may no longer enroll foreign students.
“This is part of a national strategy for the national security of the United States — not the end-all and be-all, but a part of that,” said Christopher Bentley, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
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Given Sevis’s instant nature, “there’s no room to correct the record for errors,” said Robert J. Locke of the University of North Carolina. “That’s our biggest fear in the implementation of this, that students and scholars may unwittingly fall between the cracks and become illegal.”
