[ UVM has been SEVIS compliant since August 1, 2003. I had a very interesting
conversation with Harlan Smith, Director of the Office of International
Education, at the time. He seems glad to talk with anyone interested in the
subject and was very receptive to my inquiries. -d ]
ZNet Commentary
Fear and the Foreign Student March 13, 2004
By Vijay Prashad
Over the past five decades, our American civilization has spent more on the
military and on incarceration than on health care and education. Our shoddy
commitment to education has meant that our undergraduates, for example, get
their education from under-paid adjunct or part-time teachers as well as
graduate students rather than from full-time teachers. As budgets are skewed
toward war, the gun-sights of the accountants focus on education.
Among the graduate student-teachers, a very high percentage are international
or foreign students. In the sciences, a full third of the graduate-teachers
are not US nationals. At UMASS-Amherst, over a thousand international graduate
students teach in the labs and run the introductory classes - in essence, they
make UMASS happen. So, why has the government been treating these crucial
workers as potential terror threats?
Congress passed the 1996 anti-immigration act that set in place a surveillance
system to track students (called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information
System, SEVIS). Congress and the President used the tragedy of 9/11 to demand
the implementation of SEVIS in 2003, to insist that the graduate-teachers
submit themselves to excessive scrutiny. The government's only reason given is
9/11: that is sufficient. If you say "9/11," then no further argument is
needed. SEVIS will prevent another 9/11, case closed.
Yang Wang, a Stanford graduate-teacher in the civil and environmental
engineering department who is currently stuck in China because he can't get a
return visa into the US, is not silent. "I fully understand that after the
devastating 9/11 terrorist attack, the visa background check is a necessary
procedure to ensure US security interests. But I feel we are being made the
scapegoat for the attack. This is totally unfair. A check system must be
efficient to be effective. A system that wastes its resources on innocent
students like me would never be able to focus on the true threats to the US
and would never serve its security interests well."
The SEVIS system, as well as the other new checks on foreign students, is not
only inefficient, but it places an enormous burden on graduate-teachers.
Colleges must report the private details of the international students by the
Internet to the government: if they fail to comply with the SEVIS demands, not
only is the student deported without an appeal, but the college may lose its
authorization to enroll international students.
The federal government has put the screws on colleges: there is no give. Frank
Hugus, Director of International Programs at UMASS, says, "Our hands are tied.
We have to make sure we are in compliance. We are caught between being
advocates for students and being forced to comply with regulations that in
some cases really seem excessive."
The students do, however, see two areas where UMASS (and other colleges) can
refuse and resist the government's demands: in the way it raises money to
administer the program, and in the attitude it takes toward the program. A
well-attended protest organized by the Graduate Employees Union (GEO) at UMASS
on December 11, 2003 laid out the issues clearly.
The scandal of SEVIS is that international students are being made to pay a
"service" fee to administer the system. The government will soon levy a $100
fee, while colleges will charge an unspecified sum for administrative
purposes. At UMASS, the fee is $65, a part of which will fund SEVIS.
"This is not a service," says Ibrahim Dahlstrom-Hakki, secretary treasurer of
the GEO. "It should not be called a service. It is outrageous to charge me to
pay for my own surveillance." Why should international students pay the
surveillance tax alone? As Dahlstrom-Hakki puts it, the surveillance tax
discriminates against international students. There is a federal mandate for
diversity and for equality of access, but the administration does not charge
students of color or students with disabilities a special fee. All students
contribute financially to make the campus more diverse. All students,
therefore, should pay the surveillance fee.
Anders Jonsson, a UMASS international student and GEO labor and contract
educator, has spoken to many students and student organizations across campus
about the issue. He reports widespread support for the demand that all
students must pay the fee. According to Jonsson, UMASS asked international
students to pay the fee because it takes a long time to initiate a new student
fee and because of budget cuts. "UMASS is balancing its budget on the backs of
the international students," he said. SEVIS, he continued, "should be paid for
by all the students."
The faculty union is in the students' corner. Professor Paula Chakravarty of
the Communications Department says that the fight over SEVIS is only one piece
of the onslaught on the Bill of Rights. The issue, she says, is about
"intellectual freedom on campus, about the creation of a productive
intellectual community that is diverse." The faculty resolution supports GEO's
position on the surveillance tax: it should not be borne only by the
international students.
Several international students have bravely decided not to pay the fee. "I'm
not going to pay the fee," said Zixul Liu at the demonstration. "I'm willing
to take this as far as I can." Across the country, international students are
with Liu, but again the costs of harassment and deportation will be borne by
them alone. At Madison, Wisconsin, the general student body held strong
protests against the SEVIS system: their struggle forced the administration to
fund SEVIS from the budget instead of with a surveillance tax. SEVIS continues
at Madison, but at least all students must now bear the costs for this
outrageous measure.
At UMASS, the students are as incensed, but the administration has not moved.
The City of Amherst voted against the Patriot Act, but UMASS has been silent.
UMASS has issued no public condemnation of the climate of fear created for
international students. It has offered no defense of international students'
rights to speech and association. Certainly, there is no public statement from
UMASS of sharing the burden of the SEVIS fee. Dahlstrom-Hakki reports that GEO
asked UMASS to make a public comment against these measures, but "UMASS has
done nothing to support international students. We expect them to speak out,
to say we stand against the SEVIS system." The official word from UMASS, says
Dahlstrom-Hakki, is "silence."
Vijay Prashad's most recent book is Keeping Up with the Dow Joneses: Debt,
Prison, Workfare (Boston: South End Press). He is a member of the collective
of the Northampton-based Valley War Bulletin, where this article first appeared.
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