Report Finds Deficient Regulation of Foreign Student Program
WASHINGTON (January 2, 2013) – A new Center for Immigration Studies (CIS)
Backgrounder
finds that the agency responsible for overseeing educational
institutions hosting foreign students rarely exercises its enforcement
authority.
The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), a subset of Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the Department of Homeland
Security, oversees nearly 1.2 million foreign students and their
dependents, plus close to 7,000 educational institutions. The new report
finds that despite a substantial budget and wide regulatory
responsibility, SEVP rarely rejects an institution’s application for the
authority to issue the Form I-20, the document allowing a potential
foreign student to secure a visa from an American consulate abroad. Even
more worrisome, the agency averages a mere 2.2 indictments a year of
"visa mills", groups posing as bona fide educational institutions but
which exist mainly to collect "tuition" in exchange for visas.
The report is online at
http://cis.org/sevp-migration-enforcement-agency-discourages-funds-for-Its-own-work.
Report author David North, a CIS fellow and respected immigration policy
researcher, comments, “It is incredible that after the would-be Wall
Street bomber, the Times Square bomber, and the two 9/11 pilots were all
found to have student visas, the Department of Homeland Security makes
so little effort to pursue corrupt visa mills, flight schools not
authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration, and needless language
schools. National security requires the enforcement of our immigration
laws.”
The
Backgrounder describes the assessment process: “There is no
direct governmental screening of the I-20s within the United States; it
is up to the consular or the USCIS officers to determine if the alien
is eligible for the visa or adjustment. Nor is there any routine
face-to-face contact between the SEVP and foreign students after their
arrival in the United States.”
The SEVP, staffed by 750 workers and armed with $120 million in fee
revenue, has ignored Congress’ mandate to recertify all of its
institutions every two years. As of March 2012, the agency had only
recertified 19 percent. Since one out of eight institutions approved for
the issuance of I-20s has no accreditation, recertification is of
particular importance. Mr. North notes, “Limited resources, the agency’s
excuse for not seeking or challenging fraud, is not credible with a
2012 end of the year cash balance of 135.2 million.”
