HOMELAND SECURITY: 

TRACKING INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS 

IN HIGHER EDUCATIONPROGRESS AND ISSUES SINCE 9/11

HEARING

BEFORE THE 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS 

AND THE 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SELECT EDUCATION 

OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND 

THE WORKFORCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, SEPTEMBER 24, 2002 

Serial No. 107-79 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education 

and the Workforce

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For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 

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ii

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin GEORGE MILLER, California 

MARGE ROUKEMA, New Jersey DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan 

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

HOWARD P. “BUCK” McKEON, California PATSY MINK, Hawaii 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas TIM ROEMER, Indiana 

JAMES C. GREENWOOD, Pennsylvania ROBERT C. “BOBBY” SCOTT, Virginia 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan 

CHARLIE W. NORWOOD, JR., Georgia RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas 

BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado CAROLYN McCARTHY, New York 

FRED UPTON, Michigan JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee RON KIND, Wisconsin 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

JIM DeMINT, South Carolina DENNIS KUCINICH, Ohio 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia DAVID WU, Oregon 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HILDA L. SOLIS, California 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania SUSAN DAVIS, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota 

 RIC KELLER, Florida 

 TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska 

JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

 Paula Nowakowski, Chief of Staff 

 John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director

 SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21st CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS 

 HOWARD P. “BUCK” McKEON, California, Chairman

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia, Vice Chairman PATSY MINK, Hawaii

JOHN BOEHNER, Ohio JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware RON KIND, Wisconsin 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina DAVID WU, Oregon 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan 

FRED UPTON, Michigan BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas 

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska 
iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETER HOEKSTRA, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

SELECT EDUCATION, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C.......................................................... 2 

OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JOHN TIERNEY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON SELECT EDUCATION, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C.......................................................... 3 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. “BUCK” MCKEON, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, D.C..................................................................................................................... 5 

OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE RUSH HOLT, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST

CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS AND SUBCOMMITTE ON SELECT EDUCATION, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES. WASHINGTON, D.C. ............................................................................. 7 

STATEMENT OF GLENN A. FINE, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. .................................................................................................. 9 

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN A. EDSON, ACTING MANAGING DIRECTOR, 

DIRECTORATE OF VISA SERVICES, BUREAU OF CONSULAR AFFAIRS, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D.C. ................................................................. 12 

STATEMENT OF JANIS SPOSATO, ASSISTANT DEPUTY EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE 

COMMISSIONER, IMMIGRATION SERVICES DIVISION, IMMIGRATION AND 

NATURALIZATION SERVICE, WASHINGTON, D.C............................................................ 14 

STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID WARD, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN COUNCIL ON 

EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. ........................................................................................ 17 

APPENDIX A -- WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETER HOEKSTRA, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SELECT EDUCATION, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE 

WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. ................... 45 

APPENDIX B -- WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JOHN F. 

TIERNEY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, D.C................................................................................................................... 51 

APPENDIX C -- WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. 

“BUCK” MCKEON, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. ........................................................................... 55 
iv

APPENDIX D -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF GLENN A. FINE, INSPECTOR GENERAL, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. ...................................................... 61 

APPENDIX E -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF STEPHEN A. EDSON, ACTING MANAGING 

DIRECTOR, DIRECTORATE OF VISA SERVICES, BUREAU OF CONSULAR AFFAIRS, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D.C. ......................................................... 77 

APPENDIX F -- IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE’S STUDENT AND 

EXCHANGE VISITOR INFORMATION SYSTEM (SEVIS) DEMONSTRATION SCREENS

...................................................................................................................................................... 87 

APPENDIX G -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF JANIS SPOSATO, ASSISTANT DEPUTY 

EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER, IMMIGRATION SERVICES DIVISION, 

IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. .................... 95 

APPENDIX H -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID WARD, PRESIDENT, 

AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D.C........................................ 107 

APPENDIX I -- IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE’S RESPONSES TO 

REPRESENTATIVE BETTY MCCOLLUM, REPRESENTATIVE RUBEN HINOJOSA AND 

CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. “BUCK” MCKEON’S QUESTIONS........................................... 125 

APPENDIX J -- STATEMENT SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY RANKING 

MINORITY MEMBER, GEORGE MILLER, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE 

WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. ................. 131 

APPENDIX K -- TESTIMONY SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY CONSTANTINE W. 

CURTIS, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF STATE COLLEGES AND 

UNIVERSITIES, WASHINGTON, D.C.................................................................................... 135 

Table of Indexes.......................................................................................................................... 146 
1

HOMELAND SECURITY: TRACKING INTERNATIONAL 

STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION – PROGRESS AND ISSUES SINCE 9/11 

___________________________________________

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2002 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS 

JOINT WITH THE 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SELECT EDUCATION, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCTION AND THE WORKFORCE, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

The joint subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in Room 2175, Rayburn House 

Office Building, Hon. Peter Hoekstra [chairman of the Subcommittee on Select Education] 

presiding.

 Present for the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness: Representatives McKeon, 

Johnson, Osborne, Tierney, Holt, Wu, McCollum and Andrews. 

 Present for the Subcommittee on Select Education: Representatives Hoekstra, Tiberi, 

Norwood, Scott, Holt and McCollum. 

 Also Present: Representative Roemer. 

 Staff Present: Alexa Callin, Communications Staff Assistant; George Conant, Professional 

Staff Member; Patrick Lyden, Professional Staff Member; Deborah L. Samantar, Committee 

Clerk/Intern coordinator; Kathleen Smith, Professional Staff Member; Kevin Smith, Senior 

Communications Counselor; Holli Traud, Legislative Assistant; Heather Valentine, Press 

Secretary; James Kvall, Minority Legislative Associate; Maggie McDow, Minority Legislative 

Associate; Joe Novotny, Minority Staff Assistant; and Suzanne Palmer, Minority Legislative 

Associate.
2

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETER HOEKSTRA, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SELECT EDUCATION, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Chairman Hoekstra. A quorum being present, the joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Select 

Education and the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness will come to order. 

 I would like to thank my colleague from California, the chairman of the Subcommittee on 

21st Century Competitiveness, Mr. McKeon, for agreeing to hold this joint hearing on the policy 

implementation of tracking international students in higher education. 

 So that we can get to our witnesses, we have agreed to limit the opening statements to the 

chairman and the ranking minority members of each subcommittee. With that, I ask unanimous 

consent that the record remain open 14 days to allow members to insert extraneous material into the 

official hearing record. Without objection, so ordered. 

 Thank you for being here today. We appreciate your willingness to share your insights and 

expertise into the activities of institutions and the various federal agencies that are involved in the 

monitoring of international students studying in the United States. More importantly, we look 

forward to the information you can share about how your monitoring activities have changed since 

9/11 and the hearing these subcommittees held last October. 

 We are here today to learn about the implementation of the Student Exchange and Visitor 

Information System, otherwise referred to as SEVIS, what issues are still outstanding in having it 

fully operational and what the interactions between all the players, that is, institutions of higher 

education, INS, and the State Department, have been. 

 One issue that has gotten some press recently is the concern of some about the January 30, 

2003, deadline for the implementation of SEVIS. Some say that the deadline is impossible to meet. 

Yet others, such as the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, representing more 

than 430 public 4-year colleges and universities and who submitted testimony for the hearing 

record, say that the deadline is reasonable. We need to better understand what is driving the issues 

around this deadline. 

 We are also interested in hearing the testimony of Mr. Fine, the Department of Justice's 

Inspector General. He will elaborate on the May 20, 2002, report outlining the problems associated 

with two of the 19 hijackers in particular, how the SEVIS system may or may not avoid those same 

problems in the future and what he sees as the outstanding issues associated with student visas.

 It will be of great value to hear from all of our witnesses today as to what, if anything, each 

has done outside the SEVIS system to insure that students who enter this country for the purposes 

of studying here actually fulfill that obligation and can be accounted for. 
3

 During our hearing last fall, we learned that government agencies needed to improve their 

sharing of information and that this could be improved without congressional action. I believe we 

referred to this problem as a cultural issue and an issue of trust. I am very interested to hear if any 

of those barriers, presumed or real, between law enforcement agencies and others have been 

removed and what effect, if any, the development of a Department of Homeland Security will have 

on this issue. 

 Clearly, security for the citizens of the United States must be our priority. However, having 

said that, we also want to ensure that students from around the world continue to have access to the 

best postsecondary education system available. We also want to continue the sharing of cultures 

and ideas, which makes the world in which we live safer overall by removing many stereotypes and 

misperceptions. There must be a way to accomplish both of these goals and to do so in an efficient 

and effective manner. 

 Welcome. 

WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN PETER HOEKSTRA, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON SELECT EDUCATION, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. – APPENDIX A 

Mr. Tierney. How are you? 

Chairman Hoekstra. Good. Usually I turn there, and I see Mr. Roemer, but he is serving on the 

Intelligence Committee. There is also a hearing going on in the Intelligence Committee, which is 

where Mr. Roemer is. 

 So that is the end of my opening statement. I will yield to Mr. Tierney for his opening 

statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JOHN F. TIERNEY, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE 

ON SELECT EDUCATION, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

 I am pleased to join the committee here today, which is not in my usual assignment but 

pinch-hitting. I appreciate the fact you are holding this hearing and want to add my appreciation to 

all of the witnesses who are going to testify in front of the subcommittee today. I am interested in 

hearing about the progress of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's efforts to administer the 

student and visitor exchange program. There was a hearing last October. I understand that. 
4

 I happen to be the only New England member of the Education and the Workforce 

Committee. In the time that I have been back in the New England area I have heard from a number 

of educators. In Massachusetts alone, there are 117 institutions of higher education, and all of them 

seem to want the international student visa program to work. Obviously, the educators in these 

schools, as in schools around the country, I would imagine, have as their primary goal a safe and 

secure learning environment within a free and secure nation. 

 They have expressed to me their strong view that welcoming international students to the 

campuses affords us an opportunity to interact with the rest of the world. These students, many 

who are raised in vastly different cultures, including those where they are taught negative 

stereotypes about the United States, are able to experience an environment of positive interchanges 

while they contribute to the intellectual achievements and cultural richness of our universities, 

promote understanding across cultures and acquire an appreciation for the American values of 

freedom and democracy. 

 At the same time, we all know that poor administration of the student visa program could be 

a threat. Two of the September 11 hijackers manipulated the student visa program to remain in the 

country. We must do all that we can to prevent this from ever happening again. 

 Some propose a total ban, an end to new student visas. But that is not a silver bullet.

Punishing all foreign students in an effort to root out a few nefarious characters will not solve the 

problem and will have a chilling effect on academic freedom. 

 Indeed, the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Charles Vest, wrote to 

me to express this concern, saying: “A blanket freeze is likely to be as unworkable as it is unsound 

and will be counterproductive to our strategic and economic needs. Even a limited ban on student 

visas will seriously damage our essential relationships with other nations. It will aggravate our 

national shortage of highly skilled scientists and engineers.” 

 We can reduce risk and promote vibrant international educational experiences at American 

schools. Indeed we must do so or risk a brain drain to other countries, including Canada, Australia 

and the United Kingdom, that do not close their borders to students. 

 That is why I prefer a balanced approach to allow foreign students who play by the rules to 

continue their education in America. In December, I joined with my colleagues under the 

leadership of George Miller and cosponsored House Resolution 3515, the International Student 

Responsibility Act, some of whose provisions are contained in SEVIS. We proposed to require 

criminal background checks before students are allowed to enter the United States and close 

tracking while they are here. 

 When SEVIS began, we were told that the administration would dedicate significant 

resources so that educators had the technical assistance they needed to keep international student 

programs in place, so that computers could interface, and so that the government agencies such as 

the INS, Justice and State which had not effectively communicated before 9/11 could cooperate. 
5

 Unfortunately, as the new school year begins, many students are being left behind due to 

inefficient implementation of this program. 

 As the Boston Globe reported in just yesterday's paper, hundreds of students enrolling or 

returning to Massachusetts colleges and universities have been delayed or prevented from entering 

the country because of new security policies, including extensive backgrounds checks on male 

applicants from Arab and Muslim countries. One of those students was a Third Year Harvard law 

student who is now stranded in London without a visa. He noted that adding hurdles for students 

might be more harmful than helpful in the long run to our national interest. He was quoted as 

telling the Globe it is getting at the wrong people. It is targeting liberal Arabs who would go back 

home and change their countries. 

 That result would not be acceptable to the vast majority of international students who have 

played by the rules and pose no threat to us nor to American schools that are enriched when 

international students, including the law student I just quoted, share their experiences with other 

children and take home positive views of the United States such as academic freedom and equality 

of opportunity. 

 I expect that our administration witnesses will convey Congress' concern that they make 

every effort to use the tools and the taxpayer dollars that have been given to them to implement this 

program effectively, and I look forward to the testimony today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JOHN F. TIERNEY, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – SEE APPENDIX B 

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you. 

 I would now like to recognize my colleague from California, the chairman of the 

Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness, Mr. McKeon, for the purpose of an opening 

statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. “BUCK” MCKEON, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE 

ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 I also want to welcome our witnesses here today and thank them for taking the time to 

appear before the subcommittees to inform us about what has occurred in improving the monitoring 

of international students attending postsecondary institutions in United States. 
6

 One of the concerns I have, and I mentioned this when we last had this hearing, there was a 

lot of emphasis on students coming into the country on visas, but that was actually a small portion. 

I don't remember the exact number, but it was about 500,000 students coming in, but the other 

people that enter the country on visas was vastly higher than that. Our responsibility is to students, 

but there are much greater numbers coming into the country on visas, and I hope equal attention is 

placed on those people coming in. 

 In the hearing held last October, we learned a great deal about how an international student 

wanting to study in the United States goes about obtaining an I-20 from a school, which is 

necessary to apply for a student visa. We learned about the different kinds of visas: F visas for 

those studying on the undergraduate level; J visas for exchange students; M visas for those seeking 

specific technical training; and B visas for tourists. We also learned, due to the straightforward and 

upfront testimony of our witnesses, some of the shortcomings of what was then the monitoring 

system, as well as some weak points in the sharing or lack of sharing of information between 

agencies involved in the monitoring of these students. We also heard from an institution and from 

students explaining what the process is like for them. 

 The previous testimony made clear to me the importance of continuing the exchange of 

ideas and cultures through international education and bringing the best and the brightest from 

other countries together with students here in the United States. It was also made clear that 

international students are an important source of revenue for postsecondary institutions in the 

United States. We are looking constantly for ways to improve our economy, and this is a very 

clean way to improve the environment. It is high tech, but it is does not do anything to harm the 

atmosphere. 

 We are here today to learn what has occurred since that last hearing and the tragic events of 

September 11 to preserve the safety and security of our citizens, while at the same time preserving 

the right of those seeking to enter the United States to avail them of the best education the world 

has to offer. We are also here to learn about the implementation of the Student Exchange and 

Visitor Information System, also known as SEVIS, and what the system will actually do and what 

the responsibilities are of each of the various parties, that is, the Immigration and Naturalization 

Service, the State Department and postsecondary institutions. 

 It is encouraging to hear that all parties are committed to getting the SEVIS system up and 

running. I am interested in hearing how the process has gone thus far and to learn what, if any, 

problems still exist in its full implementation. 

 It will also be important to hear from the Inspector General from the Department of Justice 

as to what still needs to be done even once the SEVIS system is up and running. In the May 20, 

2002, report the Inspector General indicated that it would take more than just SEVIS to fully 

monitor and secure the student visa system. I am looking forward to the insight and expertise that 

you can share with us. 

 Finally, what, if anything, do we do here in Congress? What do we need to do to insure 

everyone's continued cooperation and commitment to the SEVIS system and in the ongoing quest 

for education, freedom and safety here in the United States? Thank you again for joining us here to 
7

discuss this important topic. 

 I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman. 

WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HOWARD P. “BUCK” MCKEON, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – SEE APPENDIX C 

Chairman Hoekstra. I thank my colleague from California. 

 I would like to recognize Mr. Holt from New Jersey. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE RUSH HOLT, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 21ST CENTURY COMPETITIVENESS AND 

SUBCOMMITTE ON SELECT EDUCATION, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION 

AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. Holt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make a statement, and I am pleased to be 

here at this hearing on this important subject of student visas and how we monitor foreign students. 

 It has been a little over a year now, and as members of Congress, at the behest of all of our 

constituents, we have been looking carefully at our national security and ways to make the country 

more secure. Last October, we held a hearing here on student visas and found many holes in the 

way that the system had been running. 

 We all know the story of Hani Hanjour, who legally entered the U.S on a student visa but 

didn't show up at the school he was going to attend. Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi entered 

on student visas and both were approved by the INS to change their student visas from visitor to 

student. We all know the embarrassing situation when the change of status applications were 

approved nearly ten months after submitting them to the INS and six months after completing 

training at the aviation school and, in fact, notification being received well after September 11. 

 In the 1996 immigration bill that we passed into law, we require the INS to fully establish a 

foreign student tracking system by 2003. If the Student Exchange Visitor Information System, or 

SEVIS, had been installed, would we have been able to find these three and deport them before that 

tragic day in September? This is a question that haunts everyone who has been involved in this, 

and I hope that today's witnesses will be able to help us examine this and understand it and 

understand related questions better. 

 Of the seven million foreigners who enter the U.S. in a year, a half million of them are here 

on student visas. Foreign students can bring a rich cultural and intellectual experience to our 

educational system, and we need to find a system that both allows students to enter the country, 
8

while thoroughly insuring that we are not allowing terrorists. It is a difficult task. 

 The PATRIOT Act accelerated the implementation of SEVIS to January 30, upcoming, 

2003; and I am interested to hear more about the SEVIS system and whether that date can be 

achieved with full implementation. 

 And, of course, now and for months and years to come we should continually re-examine 

the balance here. We are obviously not setting out to harm schools. We are not setting out to harm 

the half million legitimate students who come here to study, nor the millions of American students 

who benefit from the presence of these foreign students. Freedom of access is central to education. 

 I think it is worth noting that, for example, the American Association of State Colleges and 

Universities has sent letters to some of us members pledging full support to the implementation of 

SEVIS by January 30. 

 So we will, for a long time, be looking for the right balance. But today I think we will be 

looking especially at the completeness of the implementation of the system as it has been 

presented, and I am eager to hear what the witnesses have to say. I would like to extend my thanks 

to you, the witnesses, for being here today; and I look forward to hearing from each of you. 

 Thank you. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you, Mr. Holt. 

 Let me introduce the witnesses that we have today. 

 We have Mr. Glenn Fine. Mr. Fine was confirmed by the United States Senate as Inspector 

General of the Department of Justice on December 15, 2000. He had served as the Acting 

Inspector General since August of 2000. 

Mr. Fine joined the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General in January of 

1995. He began, as Special Counsel to the Inspector General and in 1996 became the Director of 

the OIG's Special Investigations and Review Unit. Welcome, Mr. Fine. 

 We also have Mr. Steven Edson. Mr. Edson joined the Foreign Service in 1981 and is 

currently serving as the Acting Managing Director of the Visa Services Directorate, Bureau of 

Consular Affairs, at the State Department. 

Mr. Edson was Consul General at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, from June of 

1998 until January of 2001. Prior to that, Mr. Edson held overseas assignments in Japan, Thailand 

and India and started his career in Jakarta in 1982. Welcome to you. 

 We have Ms. Janis Sposato. Ms. Sposato joined the United States Department of Justice in 

1975 and has held various positions throughout her tenure there. 
9

 In her current position, Ms. Sposato is responsible for the adjudication of applications and 

petitions for immigration benefits. She also has held positions as General Counsel and Deputy 

Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Management Division and has also served in the Office of 

Legal Counsel as an attorney advisor. Welcome to you. 

 Then Dr. David Ward. Dr. Ward assumed his position as president of the American 

Council on Education, ACE, on September 1, 2001. 

 Prior to taking on the presidency of ACE, Mr. Ward served as chancellor of the University 

of Wisconsin-Madison for eight years. He served as a faculty member for 25 years before that. 

Dr. Ward came to the United States on a student visa in 1960, and in 1976 he became a 

United States citizen. Congratulations. I just yesterday had the opportunity to participate in a 

ceremony where we swore in 450 new citizens, some of who had come here on student visas as 

well.

 So, with that, Mr. Fine, we will begin with you; and you know how the lights work. Green 

says you have got plenty of time, yellow says you are running low, and red says you are out. But, 

you know, it is a very important subject. We are very interested in hearing all of your testimony, 

and I think that we are going to get a presentation on SEVIS as well, so that is going to take a little 

bit longer. 

 But we will begin with you, Mr. Fine. 

STATEMENT OF GLENN A. FINE, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. Fine. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittees, thank you for inviting me to testify 

regarding the INS's tracking of foreign students studying in the United States. 

 In May, 2002, the Office of the Inspector General issued a lengthy report entitled, the 

Immigration and Naturalization Service's Contacts With Two September 11 Terrorists: A Review 

of the INS's Admissions of Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, Its Processing of Their Change 

of Status Applications, and Its Efforts to Track Foreign Students in the United States. 

 In this report, the OIG examined several related issues: first, the INS's contacts with and 

admissions into the country of Atta and Alshehhi; second, the INS's delayed notification to a flight 

school in March, 2002, six months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, that the two men's 

change of status applications had been approved; and, third, the INS's monitoring and tracking of 

foreign students in general, including the INS's new system, SEVIS. 

 My testimony today will primarily address the third issue, the INS's system for monitoring 

foreign students. I will discuss the problems in the existing system, the clear benefits of the 

Internet-based system that the INS is implementing called SEVIS, and the significant progress that 
10

the INS has made in implementing SEVIS and the continuing concerns the OIG has about its full 

implementation. 

 The INS's previous system for recording information about the status of foreign students 

and schools approved to accept foreign students was antiquated, incomplete and riddled with 

inaccuracies. For example, of 200 schools we reviewed in the database, we found that 86 were no 

longer in operation. Of the 114 schools still in operation, 40 had incorrect addresses and 16 had 

incorrect names. 

 We believe that the new system, SEVIS, will address many of the INS's problems in 

tracking foreign students. For example, schools will enter information about students directly into 

SEVIS, and the INS and schools will be able to identify more easily when a student's change of 

status has been approved, when a student entered the United States and whether the student is 

actually attending school. 

 Since we issued our report in May, the INS has made very significant strides towards 

implementing SEVIS, which I describe in more detail in my written statement. Yet, despite these 

substantial efforts, we continue to believe that full implementation of SEVIS is unlikely by the 

deadline of January 30, 2003. Our ongoing concerns have more to do with issues such as the 

process of certifying school eligibility and SEVIS training for INS employees and school officials 

rather than with SEVIS's technical implementation. 

 First, the INS is requiring site visits of flight, vocational language and other high-risk 

schools prior to certifying them as eligible to accept foreign students. The INS intends to have 

contract investigators using INS-developed checklists to perform these site visits. The INS has 

recently indicated that it will use three contract investigation companies to perform the site visits 

and that by January 30 the contract investigators will be able to visit all the high-risk schools that 

apply for certification. 

 We believe that this will be a difficult task, and we are concerned about the 

comprehensiveness of the contractor's reviews, particularly given the expedited time frame. We 

are also concerned about the INS's ability to adequately train and oversee the contractors who will 

be under significant time constraints to complete the visits. We believe the INS needs to develop 

an oversight process that will insure the adequacy of these reviews. 

 Further, the INS has not agreed with our recommendation to devote full-time personnel in 

the INS districts to SEVIS. We are concerned that without dedicating full-time personnel INS staff 

will not be able to devote adequate attention to their SEVIS duties when other priorities arise. 

 In addition, the INS must train its employees who will be responsible for overseeing and 

using SEVIS. The INS held SEVIS training sessions and requested that each district office send a 

representative. But because the INS had not decided who in each district would be responsible for 

SEVIS, there is no assurance that the appropriate INS personal attended the training session.

SEVIS training must also be provided to INS adjudicators, inspectors and investigators. 
11

 Similarly, the INS needs to provide training on SEVIS to school representatives. 

Throughout the past year, the INS has held SEVIS demonstrations for school officials. However, 

officials did not necessarily attend these sessions from smaller schools, including flight schools that 

are probably most in need of such training. 

 The subcommittees have also asked for suggestions about what Congress can do to improve 

the monitoring of international students studying in the United States. 

 First, we believe that continued congressional interest and oversight can have an important 

impact on the program. The INS has made substantial strides towards implementing SEVIS, but 

we believe SEVIS should remain an INS priority, particularly when other new and important issues 

confront the INS in the future. Continued congressional oversight can help insure that full 

implementation of SEVIS remains a priority. 

 Second, the INS needs sufficient resources to fully and effectively implement the system, 

including following up on indications of fraud. 

 Third, Congress should consider whether to require that part-time foreign students be 

tracked in SEVIS. Currently, only data pertaining to full-time students will be included in SEVIS. 

 In sum, I want to make clear that we believe that SEVIS will significantly enhance the 

INS's ability to track foreign students in the United States and will improve its ability to detect and 

prevent fraud. I also believe that the INS should be credited for making significant strides in 

implementing SEVIS. 

 It appears that the INS will have a system operational and available by January 30, 2003, 

and will have taken many critical systems towards fully implementing the system. But while we 

believe that SEVIS will be operational by January 30, we question whether it will be fully 

implemented by that date. 

 For SEVIS to be fully implemented and for the program to succeed, we believe the INS 

must, first, insure that all high-risk schools are certified through site visits by January 30; second, 

dedicate sufficient resources to adequately training INS personnel and school officials; third, insure 

that SEVIS is available at all ports of entry, service centers, district offices and consular posts; 

fourth, insure that information from SEVIS is analyzed and used to identify noncompliant and 

fraudulent operations; and, fifth, follow up whether the SEVIS data indicates fraud in the program.

We recognize that these will not be easy tasks, but we believe they are necessary for SEVIS to 

achieve its full potential in improving the INS's foreign student program. 

 This concludes my statement, and I would be pleased to answer any questions. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you very much. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF GLENN A. FINE, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT 

OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. – SEE APPENDIX D 
12

Chairman Hoekstra. Mr. Edson. 

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN A. EDSON, ACTING MANAGING DIRECTOR, 

DIRECTORATE OF VISA SERVICES, BUREAU OF CONSULAR AFFAIRS, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. Edson. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittees, thank you for the opportunity to 

appear before you this afternoon to explain the department's role in the electronic verification of 

student and exchange visitor visas and to provide you with an update on our implementation 

efforts. 

 We in the State Department are actively participating with INS and the exchange 

community in the design and the development of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information 

System. I defer to my INS colleague to outline SEVIS in detail, but I believe it is a permanent 

system that will contribute to our national security as it adds integrity to the student and exchange 

visa issue process. 

 At the same time we are working on SEVIS implementation, in response to a separate 

legislative mandate the department has launched the Interim Student and Exchange Authentication 

System, ISEAS, which will provide for the electronic verification of student and exchange visas 

until SEVIS is fully implemented. ISEAS is a web-based system that allows consular officers to 

verify the acceptance of foreign students and exchange visitors who apply to enter the United 

States on student, whether F or M, and exchange visitor, J, nonimmigrant visa categories based on 

information the schools or exchange programs sponsors enter directly into the system. 

 That portion of the legislative mandate that requires the department to inform INS of the F, 

M and J visa issuance is being accomplished using existing data share link between INS and the 

Department of State. 

 As you know, section 501(c) of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act 

of 2002 mandated mandates that from September 11, 2002, which was 120 days from the act's 

passage, until SEVIS is fully implemented, a visa may not be issued to a student or exchange 

visitor unless the Department of State has received from an approved educational institution or 

exchange visitor program electronic evidence of the alien's acceptance in that institution and a 

consular officer has reviewed the applicants visa record. ISEAS is the means by which INSapproved educational institutions and department-designated exchange programs meet this 

legislative requirement. 

 Consistent with the legislation, ISEAS is being established as an interim system with the 

limited support and capacity implied in that term. ISEAS will stand alone for its entire lifetime and 

will not be able to share any data with SEVIS. This is significant because as mandatory SEVIS 

compliance grows nearer and more and more educational institutions and designated program 

sponsors become SEVIS compliant we will find ourselves in a situation where designated officials 

will have to electronically register visa applicants in two separate databases, ISEAS and SEVIS, 
13

and consular offices in many cases will have to check two separate databases in order to confirm 

the providence of those documents until ISEAS sunsets with final SEVIS implementation on 

January 30, 2003. 

 ISEAS consists of two independent computer-based subsystems with data transferred 

between the two. The first subsystem contains an Internet website and a direct link for approved 

institutions and exchange program sponsors to enter data from the appropriate acceptance 

document for the students. To insure data integrity, the ISEAS Internet subsystem validates the 

identification data entered against approved lists of institutions or program sponsors. 

 Once ISEAS confirms that that institution or program sponsor is on one of the approved 

lists, the designated institution or program official enters the required data and the system returns a 

confirmation number. 

 Due to the very short development period mandated by the legislation, we were unable to 

deploy ISEAS before September 11. Consequently, participating academic institutions and 

exchange programs were unable to enter the required data into the ISEAS database prior to 

deployment. Therefore, to minimize the negative impact on visa processing, we devised back-up 

procedures to insure that consular officers receive timely status verification directly from the 

sponsoring institutions and programs during the first 30 days of ISEAS implementation until 

October 11. 

 Should the ISEAS option in any case proves unworkable, students have been asked to 

contact their schools or sponsors and the consular officers in the field will accept direct e-mail 

notification, confirmation from the institutions in the United States to the consular section. 

 In the days since ISEAS launched we have communicated with hundreds of academic 

institutions and exchange program sponsors, working through technical and notification issues and 

facilitating the electronic notification of students and exchange visitors both within the ISEAS 

system and through those back-up procedures mentioned a moment ago. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the committees, as of this morning, and this is an update from the 

printed version of the testimony, over 2,393 institutions have entered over 40,000 records in 

ISEAS. Since September 11, 197 visa-issuing posts around the world have confirmed the records 

of 3,300, roughly, student and exchange visas. 

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committees, for permitting me to share this 

information with you this afternoon. I would be pleased to answer any questions that you may 

have.

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF STEPHEN A. EDSON, ACTING MANAGING DIRECTOR, 

DIRECTORATE OF VISA SERVICES, BUREAU OF CONSULAR AFFAIRS, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D.C. – SEE APPENDIX E 
14

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you. Ms. Sposato. 

STATEMENT OF JANIS SPOSATO, ASSISTANT DEPUTY EXECUTIVE 

ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER, IMMIGRATION SERVICES DIVISION, 

IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Ms. Sposato. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittees. I am happy to be 

here this afternoon to tell you about SEVIS, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. 

 As you have heard from the other witnesses, this is an exciting new program to track certain 

information about student and exchange visitors. It will enable the INS to monitor the compliance 

of foreign students and exchange visitors with the immigration laws with greater efficiency and 

with greater confidence that the information we have is accurate and up to date. 

 While I intend to use the largest part of my statement time to show you how the system 

actually works, I want to begin with a few remarks about readiness. Congress has mandated that 

the system be fully operational by January 1, 2003. INS will meet that statutory deadline. By this, 

I mean all of the software will be deployed and available to schools for use by that date. I also 

mean that INS will review the applications of schools and, as appropriate, give them passwords to 

use the system by January 30, so long as the school has applied timely. 

 The significance of January 30 is that INS intends to require all schools to use SEVIS for 

any new student documentation that they issue after that date. As of tomorrow, when the INS will 

publish its certification rule in the Federal Register, any school may apply to use SEVIS by 

following simple procedures outlined in the rule and on the INS website. 

 I can say that we will meet the January 1st deadline with confidence in part because the 

largest piece of the software is already deployed. That is the piece dealing with academic and 

technical schools. It has been available to selected schools since July 1st, and it will be available to 

all schools as of tomorrow. 

 My confidence about our ability to review the applications and enroll all schools that apply 

timely is based upon our strategy for enrolling schools in a phased approach using three contract 

investigation firms with over 1,500 employees to make the site visits. While it is our intention to 

make site visits to all schools, we intend to allow certain accredited schools with whom we have 

done business in the past to use SEVIS before their site visit is undertaken. 

 The Department of Justice Inspector General has said several times that he has doubts about 

whether we will be able to have SEVIS fully implemented by January first. If you listen carefully 

and read beyond the headlines, what the IG is staying is that we will have the system deployed and 

used by schools by January, but we won't have accomplished all of his recommended training of 

everyone involved with the system and our plans for compliance monitoring won't be fully 
15

accomplished. 

 I agree with the Inspector General that compliance monitoring and training are ongoing 

needs. SEVIS is a program. It is not an event. It will grow and develop after January 1. 

 We have already conducted two training conferences with the INS officers who will be 

using SEVIS most directly. We have additional training and compliance programs planned for the 

spring of 2003, and there will be more after that. But make no mistake about it. The system will 

be fully functional by January 1st, and schools will be required to use it for all new students as of 

January 30th. 

 The schools have a different set of concerns about January deadlines. They are concerned 

about their own ability to comply with the deadlines as outlined in the proposed rule published by 

the INS last May. Like the Inspector General, they realize that INS will have made the system 

fully available before January. 

 We are working with the schools to help make their transition to SEVIS as easy as possible.

Over the last year we have attended over a hundred meetings with school groups to acquaint them 

with their responsibilities under SEVIS, and we have many more scheduled over the next year. We 

have developed SEVIS training videos for distribution to the schools and published our proposed 

program rule in May of this year for comment. We have a robust help desk to answer questions 

and assist schools as they begin to use SEVIS. 

 Finally, we are developing a batch processing capability to allow schools to load data 

directly into SEVIS from their school computer systems, minimizing the necessity for manual data 

entry. This week, we made available a system to test on our website a school's ability to use the 

batch processing capability in SEVIS. All of this is well in advance of the January deadline. 

 Much has been accomplished, and much remains to be done. The system is simple, and the 

largest part is here today. I think the best way to show you is with a short demonstration. I will be 

assisted in this by Stella Jarina, our Director of Student Operations. 

 Before I actually show you the screens from the system, I would like to walk you through 

the process with a single student. 

IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE’S STUDENT AND EXCHANGE 

VISITOR INFORMATION SYSTEM (SEVIS) DEMONSTRATION SCREENS– SEE 

APPENDIX F 

 SEVIS is the great big database in the middle of the screen. It receives and transmits data 

to and from various sources. At number one the student begins by applying to a school or multiple 

schools. If accepted, the school will enter certain data about the student into SEVIS via Internet. 

That is number one you can see. 
16

 The system will print a form I-20, which the school will send to the student with his or her 

acceptance packet, and that is shown with number two. 

 Next, the student takes the I-20 or I-20s if they have been accepted in multiple schools and 

applies at a consulate for a visa. That is shown in number three. 

 At the consulate, the Department of State will be able to access the data from SEVIS about 

this prospective student and determine whether to issue a visa. If a visa is issued, the data is 

recorded and transmitted to SEVIS, and the system will invalidate any other outstanding I-20s for 

that student. So that is shown at number four. 

 At a port of entry, the entry of the student is recorded and transmitted to SEVIS. That is 

number five. 

 SEVIS then notifies the school that the student has arrived. That is number seven. 

 Within 30 days of the close of the school's registration period, the school must record the 

registration of the student shown as number six and seven. 

 If this doesn't happen, the system will notify the school and the INS district office of the 

discrepancy. If it is a school error, it can be corrected at that time. If it is not an error, the INS 

district office will refer the matter to INS enforcement for further handling; and that is number 

eight on the screen. 

 Over a student's career at the school certain other events must be recorded by the school 

such as change of address, early completion, or any known failure to maintain student status. 

Eventually, the student's record in SEVIS is closed when the course of studies is completed, and 

that is number seven. 

 Now I would like to show you the I-20 form that a school fills out with a new student. I am 

going to go through it very quickly because you don't really need to learn the details. All you really 

need to see is that it is here, and it is simple for the school to complete. It contains very little 

information that is different from the paper I-20 that the schools type today. 

 Okay, what you have here is an I-20 that is filled out for me, Janis Sposato; and it has my 

country of birth, information about my residence in Italy, my country of origin. 

 When you go to the second page of the I-20, and there are a lot of blanks on this I-20 

because they are not all required fields for the school to fill out when a student first arrives. For 

example, the address, the foreign address on Page 2 is filled in, but the U.S. address would not be 

filled in at that time because the student wouldn't have one. At the later point in time when the 

student registers, the U.S. address becomes a mandatory field. So at the time of application you are 

filling out the preliminary information, the foreign address and a little bit of information about the 

course of studies that the student is going to take, and that is the second page. 
17

 The third page of the form includes information about the students' ability to pay the tuition. 

The light blue part of the form is information about what it costs to go to that particular institution 

and the dark blue part of the form is information submitted by the student about their sources of 

funding. When this last screen is filled out, if there are no dependents, and if the student will have 

dependents that are traveling with the student to the United States, there will be another screen for 

dependents. If there are no dependents, the form is transmitted and it moves into SEVIS. An I-20 

form is produced by the system with a bar code, and that I-20 form is what is taken to the embassy. 

 We are not getting the I-20 form. It is coming. There it is. 

 And that is the system in a nutshell. It is here, it is available, and about a thousand schools 

right now and many more to come are using it. 

 Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF JANIS SPOSATO, ASSISTANT DEPUTY EXECUTIVE 

ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER, IMMIGRATION SERVICES DIVISION, IMMIGRATION 

AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. – SEE APPENDIX G 

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you. Dr. Ward. 

STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID WARD, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN COUNCIL 

ON EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. Ward. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Could you, yes, pull the mike up, please? Thanks. 

Mr. Ward. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. I am glad to be here 

representing ACE, a membership organization of college presidents of 1,800 institutions and 76 

other educational and exchange visitor organizations. 

 Much has changed in the months since this committee last met to consider issues related to 

international education and student visas, but one thing that has not changed is the importance of 

the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, SEVIS. This electronic tracking system 

will link U.S. Embassies and consulates overseas, every INS port of entry and every institution of 

higher education and exchange visitor program. It remains the single most important step that the 

federal government can take to improve the ability to monitor international students. We continue 

to strongly support SEVIS, and we would like to see it implemented as soon as possible. 

 We think that INS has done a good job of implementing SEVIS. They have made progress 

more rapidly than we ever thought possible a year ago. They have consulted us. They have 

attended professional meetings to talk to our constituencies that will have to perform the operations 
18

on campus. 

 All colleges and exchange visitor programs know that SEVIS is coming and understand the 

seriousness of implementing it promptly and properly. We have communicated developments to 

them. Colleges and exchange programs know as the ultimate users of this system that they have a 

central role to play in making SEVIS work. Many schools are now hiring staff working overtime 

and upgrading their IT systems so that they will be ready on January the 31st. They are, of course, 

expensive changes, but all colleges are spending money without hesitation. 

 But while the INS has done a good job and we are ready and willing, indeed anxious to do 

our part, we are somewhat concerned about how much remains to be done in a rapidly shrinking 

period of time before our members must be fully compliant. Unfortunately, we do not know all 

that we need to know if we are likely to be able to make this work smoothly when the compliance 

date arrives. 

 Let me be specific. The regulations governing SEVIS and international visas, that is F and 

M, have not been published in final form. They must still be reviewed and cleared by both the 

Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget. We do not expect them before 

Thanksgiving. The regulations governing SEVIS and exchange visitor visas J that must be issued 

by the State Department, not INS, have not been published in draft form. The draft regulations 

have been under review at the Office of Management and Budget for more than a hundred days. 

Given this delay, we are unlikely to have the J regulations until after we are expected to be in full 

compliance. 

 INS has not yet determined how many campus officials, called designated school officials, 

or DSOs, will be permitted to process or enter data into SEVIS. Because of the added workload 

created by SEVIS, campuses, especially those with large numbers of international students, will 

need more DSOs. Batch processing, a key element of SEVIS for schools or exchange programs 

with more than 200 students or visitors, may not be ready for full operational testing until midOctober. The batch processing test announced by INS last week will allow schools and exchange 

programs to test the system but only in a very preliminary manner. 

 Schools have hundreds of technical operational questions and have had very uneven success 

in getting answers from the INS help desk. According to the Department of Justice Inspector 

General, INS has not provided adequate training to its own regional office staff that will advise 

campuses about SEVIS implementation. 

 The amount of the fee that students must pay to register in the system and the procedure for 

collecting the fee remain unsettled. INS as of yet has no plans, although it probably will, to train 

campus officials. 

 Adding to the complexity, the State Department, as required by the enhanced border 

security and visa entry format, put a temporary system in place two weeks ago to electronically 

monitor international students and exchange visitors on a preliminary basis known as ISEAS. This 

is, in essence, a pre-SEVIS electronic tracking system with different requirements than what we 
19

will face under SEVIS. There is absolutely no linkage between ISEAS and SEVIS. 

 I do, however, want to reiterate that colleges and universities and exchange visitor programs 

have a strong commitment to implementing SEVIS as soon as possible and to meeting the deadline 

at the end of January. But, to do this, we ask that we have all the tools and the regulatory guidance 

we need to do this in a timely and effective manner. 

 We right now find ourselves in the position of a homeowner who wants to install a new 

furnace but lacks an instructional manual, needs tools that are not yet available and doesn't have 

some of the parts that the manufacturer promised to provide. This is a challenge for us, and we 

respect the challenge of INS in trying to implement SEVIS by the end of January. 

Mr. Chairman, I wish to assure you and the members of this committee, or your 

subcommittees, that we wish that SEVIS would be implemented by the end of January, and we will 

commit ourselves to make Herculean efforts to accomplish this task. Right now, we just simply 

have some worries about what will happen when the compliance day arrives and some of the 

problems that I have indicated will still be present. 

 Thank you very much. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID WARD, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN COUNCIL ON 

EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. – SEE APPENDIX H 

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you very much to the panel. 

 We will now go to a process of five minutes of questioning for the members. 

 Is it an accurate description to say that on January 30th we will be compliant with the 

mandates of Congress, but it may not quite work the way that we want it to? I mean, technically 

we will have met the target, but it may not be working quite the way that we would have wanted it 

to be. 

Ms. Sposato. Well, the congressional date is January 1st. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Okay. 

Ms. Sposato. The system will be up and running and schools will be enrolled and able to use it. 

On January 1st_and I can never say a system won't have glitches, but the system's been up now 

since July so we are pretty confident about the way the system will work. 

 The full amount of training and we have trained the INS officers. We have brought them in 

twice already. The training may not be as full and complete as we would like it to be and our 

compliance efforts won't have really been put into place, so that is why I say it is not an event that 

occurs on January 1st. But the system will be there, and it will be working and we think working 

well. But there is always more to do. 
20

Chairman Hoekstra. Yeah. I mean, if Dr. Ward is accurate that the rulemaking is not done, you 

know, how does that impact Dr. Ward and the schools that he represents if there is not any 

rulemaking?

Ms. Sposato. Well, there is rulemaking. INS put in its regulations involving the F and M 

programs, which are the academic and technical schools and we published our regulations for 

comments by the school and other communities in May. That proposed rule is the road map for 

what the schools have to do, and to the extent that there are schools concerned about the number of 

DSOs, et cetera, it is because they have commented and seen that rule. INS will have its final rule 

published before the January date. 

 You know, the review and comment process for federal rules is not something I can control 

or want to make predictions about, but it will be out. Our rule will be out this fall. The State 

Department is working very hard to get their J rule promulgated. Whether it is promulgated as an 

interim final rule or as a proposed rule, I don't know. But we are going to do everything we can to 

have the rules out as soon as possible. 

 But the schools do know the basic content of those rules, because our rule has been out 

since May. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Now, why are part-time students not included? Can a foreign student come 

here as a part-time student? 

Ms. Sposato. Is that a question for me? 

Chairman Hoekstra. Whoever can answer the question, I am open. 

Ms. Sposato. When people come to the United States, they come with some kind of status. You 

can come because you are going to be a full-time student, in which case you can get an F visa or an 

M visa. You can come to be a visitor in which case you get a B visa. So you can come, based 

upon different theories, and that is the basis upon which the State Department gives you a visa. 

Right now you cannot obtain a visa to be a student if you are not going to be a full-time student. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Who brought that issue up? 

Mr. Fine. I did, Mr. Chairman. The concern that we have is yes, you can come to the United 

States on a B visa for pleasure, or for business, and if you take part-time studies under a certain 

amount of hours per week, you are not required to get a student visa, and you are not required to 

change your status in any way. That is what happened, for example, and that is what happened for 

people attending flight schools or other trucking schools. Students that would be of concern but 

who come here with a B visa and take those courses and are not monitored or tracked in any way 

by the system. 

Chairman Hoekstra. So the concern there is that they could come to school here and get training, 

which we might not want them to have, is that the concern? Because I am assuming under these 

other systems, we will also have a tracking mechanism, but the loophole there is say we do not 
21

want to train any more pilots. 

Mr. Fine. We have no indication or tracking of what has been trained or what has been attending 

those schools or not. 

Ms. Sposato. If I may? 

Chairman Hoekstra. Yes. 

Ms. Sposato. The INS has put in place a very aggressive, actually it was the Department of Justice 

tracking system for people who might attend flight schools, which is separate and apart from fulltime students in flight schools who would also be tracked in SEVIS. To get at the chair's concept 

that there are certain kind of training that you might not get on a full-time basis, you might get 

when you are here on some other kind of visa that we might want to keep control of. 

 On the other hand if you are here with your spouse, who is an H1B worker, and you want to 

take courses in gardening or something like that, INS has no particular interest. I do not think the 

U.S. Government has any particular interest in tracking that kind of part-time student. So we do 

have a pretty aggressive program in place for tracking flight students separate and apart from 

SEVIS.

Chairman Hoekstra. Is that the kind of stuff that is spelled out in rule making? 

Ms. Sposato. Yes, there is a rule about that. I am not overly familiar with the program, but it 

involves anybody who wants to study on any kind of basis for any amount of time to fly aircraft 

over a certain weight limitation. 

Mr. Fine. I think that is contradicted. You have to fly an aircraft, I think it is over 12,000 lbs., I 

forget the exact number, but it is a larger aircraft, it is not a smaller aircraft, and that is obviously a 

concern for smaller aircraft as well as some other schools, which are not types of schools covered 

by that program. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Does the rule making take into account and lay out the dynamics of system 

in terms of spelling out if a student falls out of status, what determines out of status and how 

quickly the school has to respond into SEVIS? 

Ms. Sposato. Yes, the rule making I believe is fairly specific about requirements for the school to 

report certain events, for example, a failure to show or a dropping of credits so they fall into a parttime status, and in most cases it is within 30 days the school has to make that entry. 

Chairman Hoekstra. A penalty is attached to the schools not providing the information? 

Ms. Sposato. I do not believe there are penalties assessed on the schools, but if a school does not 

meet its obligation under SEVIS, one, we will know it; two, we have a biannual certification 

process that is required by the statute and the school can be denied access to SEVIS, which would 
22

be a penalty of sorts. 

Chairman Hoekstra. How would you know if somebody fell out of status if the school did not 

tell you? 

Ms. Sposato. That particular thing we might not know immediately, but when we do our biannual 

certifications, it is the kind of thing we will be looking at school record to make sure that they 

comport with what has been reported in SEVIS. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Will you have the resources to do this? How many schools do you have to 

check? 

Ms. Sposato. I do not know the number of schools. 

Chairman Hoekstra. What do you mean, you do not know the number of schools? 

Ms. Sposato. We do not know the number of schools who will apply to be in SEVIS. We know 

the number of schools who are active in our testimony today, and that is under 10,000. So we have 

some sense of who will apply and who will use SEVIS. We do, and as of tomorrow, we will have 

in place our regulation that many explain our plans for certifying schools, and they include 

charging the school a fee which will be used to pay for the certification process, and it would be 

our anticipation that the two-year process would work somewhat like the initial process, although 

we may modify it somewhat to reflect the different situation. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Is that a fee per student? 

Ms. Sposato. This is a fee per application for school. The school would pay the fee for each 

campus that is applying to be in the system. 

Chairman Hoekstra. It is not per student. The University of Wisconsin with a thousand 

applicants will pay the same; will pay more or less than the technical school that has ten students. 

Ms. Sposato. Assuming it has one campus that is admitting the foreign students, they will pay the 

same fee as a smaller school. The concept behind the fee is that we are going to send a contractor 

to make a site visit to the school to work with the school official to make sure that they are 

adequately aware of their responsibilities under SEVIS to make sure they have the record keeping 

ability that they need and that they have actually met their requirements under the old system. And 

that will cost us the same to do that with a contractor whether it is a school with a lot of students or 

a school with just a few. 

Chairman Hoekstra. How big is the fee? 

Ms. Sposato. The fee is $580 per campus. 

Chairman Hoekstra. That’s $580 per campus, every two years? 
23

Ms. Sposato. No, that is the initial fee. We have not yet done a fee study and really worked out 

the details of what we will do at the two-year mark. So the two-year fee could be less if we 

determine that fewer site visits are necessary, or a different kind of monitoring is visible. So it will 

be a $580 fee for a single campus first time in. 

Chairman Hoekstra. I would guess with travel, lodging, you might get about two or three hours 

of contractor work per location to certify. 

Ms. Sposato. No, we are expecting agents, more than that; we have hired contractors who have 

nationwide networks of investigators. 

Chairman Hoekstra. So okay, you will get six hours of campus. You will get the benefit of the 

doubt for 80 bucks an hour, they will not charge you for mileage or lunch or a report so you may 

get somebody six or seven hours on campus? 

Ms. Sposato. We are expecting a one-day visit, that's correct. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Okay. 

Ms. Sposato. Part of that fee, not all of that fee, goes to the contractor; the INS uses part of that 

fee.

Chairman Hoekstra. That makes me even more nervous. I cannot believe that you can certify 

those folks in less than a day. 

Ms. Sposato. It is a very aggressive program. We are doing what we can in the time we have. 

Chairman Hoekstra. SEVIS is only as good as the information going in, and if these screening 

these schools for less than one day in their track record per campus, that is going to be tough. I 

have to believe that Coach Osborne took more time than that screening one football player at the 

University of Nebraska. And you can see what's happened to the University of Nebraska now 

when they have cut down their screening time. 

Ms. Sposato. If I could reply, I would like nothing better than to spend a week with each school.

We do not have that luxury before January. But the initial site visit and review of the school's 

application is not the only compliance measure that is built into this program. We will have an 

analytic group once the school begins entering data into SEVIS. We will have an analytic group 

that watches that information, and will be able to see things like, for example, a school does not 

enter the registration of students on a timely basis, and the system therefore kicks out alerts, but 

when we go find those alerts, the school says oh, actually they did attend, they are right here. 

 So when we find those kind, we will be monitoring those kinds of things as the system 

develops. That is why I agree with the Inspector General that there is a lot more to running the 

program than simply delivering the system on the first day. 
24

Chairman Hoekstra. That is exactly I think the point. There is a lot more to running the system.

We knew what the flaws in the notice system were out of the sample of 200 schools. What were 

the numbers you used? 

Mr. Fine. Eighty-six were no longer in existence, were defunct. Of the 114 that were still 

operational, 40 of them had incorrect information in the system. So 43 percent of the schools on 

the list that the INS had were no longer operational. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Ms. McCollum. 

Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When was the first SEVIS 1 implemented? When 

was that? 

Ms. Sposato. If you mean the Cypress system, 1997. 

Ms. McCollum. Since 1997, where we had a system in place, and it is now today and we are still 

finding we have wrong addresses and a system that does not work, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chair, I am glad you are having this hearing. I had a bill and I wanted to look at 

changing the system radically and putting it in the INS, because we had a system that did not work 

at our colleges and universities. And the system that I hear about today gives me great concern 

when you and I will have confidence that we have a system that is even working today, Mr. 

Chairman. 

 After the events of September 11th, it became clear that student visas might have been 

involved in the state university systems, it was incumbent upon them to collect fees to pay for this 

program, and we are seeing what you get for the dollar. I introduced a bill on October 4th to look at 

having us take care of the fee, so at least we had a steady stream of income to get some of these 

operations going. In my district in St. Paul, we have ten universities, community colleges and 

private colleges. It is the home to MacAllister College, where the person who presides over the 

U.N., Mr. Kofi Annan, received his education. 

 We take great pride in the fact that we have many students, and I am very proud also of our 

flight school in Minnesota, which reported their suspicions on one of their students that was 

attending. However, I do have some questions. How much is it actually going to cost, once you 

work out some of these problems, to administer this program annually? How much is it going to 

cost the INS, how much is it going to cost the State Department and what fee is going to be passed 

on to foreign students, or what fees are going to be absorbed by the university system? 

Ms. Sposato. Congress appropriated $37 million for the development and deployment and initial 

operation of SEVIS. And we are using that money today. Once the 37 million is exhausted or 

somewhat before that, a student fee will need to be assessed to continue the operation of the system 

and the program. A fee study has recently been conducted to look at the fee Congress has 

mandated, which says that INS collect such a fee and that it not exceed $100. 
25

Ms. McCollum. Madam, I asked you how much it was going to cost, not your time frame. 

Ms. Sposato. And I am not prepared to tell you the data, but I would be happy to get back to you 

with estimated numbers. 

Ms. McCollum. I would appreciate you giving that to the chairman. Mr. Chairman, for us to do 

our job, we need the information, we need to know what we need to appropriate in order to make 

our homeland secure. 

 Another question that I have is when the discussion about part-time training, I am drawing 

from inference that as you have low risk and high risk schools, as you have part-time students who 

will be looking at those who are attending a high risk and low risk school, for example, if I am a 

part-time student due to my health, or I am a spouse or a dependent or someone who came in on an 

H-1 visa and want to take Minnesota history or the history of the United States or something like 

that, and I am at St. Thomas College, for example, I am in a low risk institution part-time, but if, all 

the sudden, I want to learn how to fly a heavy aircraft that puts me at a high risk institution.

Because, Mr. Chair, I am very concerned with the amount of resources and the number of students 

and the amount of misinformation that is still out there in the system that they are collecting, that 

we are not only going not meet this deadline, and I do not have confidence in any deadline shortly. 

 In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out for the record also, in the information I 

have in front of me, there are over 500,00 foreign students, 500,000 foreign students enrolled in 

colleges and universities in the United States. My son has been a foreign exchange student. I have 

great affection for foreign exchange systems. I think it helps nations build. I think it helps 

democracies. But with those numbers in mind, Mr. Chair, we had 232 million visas issued in the 

United States, so this is like searching for a needle in a haystack if someone wants to come in. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE’S RESPONSES TO 

REPRESENTATIVE BETTY MCCOLLUM’S QUESTIONS – SEE APPENDIX I 

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you. I am assuming, based on the answer to the question for Ms. 

McCollum, you have an idea based on the study that is done, whether $100 is a sufficient number 

fee or not, but you are just not prepared to tell us at this point; is that correct? 

Ms. Sposato. I can say the study came in under $100, significantly. I just do not have the total 

budget, which is what I understood the question could be. 

Chairman Hoekstra. All right, thank you. Mr. McKeon. 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have some of the same concerns that Ms. 

McCollum ended her statement on. We have, the record I have shows that we have 300 million 

entries and exits to the United States annually, and we are focusing on the 500,000 students. It 

seems like we have lots of questions with the system to monitor those students. I am also 

concerned about the other 299-1/2 million that we are not even talking about right here today. How 
26

many high-risk schools are there? 

Ms. Sposato. The INS has not named categories of high medium and low risk schools. 

Chairman McKeon. What would be the definition? 

Ms. Sposato. I am not sure. 

Chairman McKeon. Who will determine that? 

Ms. Sposato. The regulation required that would be published tomorrow will allow the INS to 

prioritize the visit, the site visit to schools based on a risk analysis, which we will have to conduct. 

Chairman McKeon. Will we be given a copy of that? 

Ms. Sposato. I would be glad to share it when it is done. 

Chairman McKeon. I have a question for both the INS and the State Department. It has been 

widely reported that federal investigators have charged a professor of Morris Brown College in 

Atlanta with helping 17 foreign students fraudulently obtain visas to enter the United States. 

Specifically, from 1997 to 2001, according to news reports, at least 17 foreign nationals paid 

between 2- and $5,000 each for documents that helped them to be accepted at Morris Brown. They 

used the documents to get students visas, though they did not plan to attend the school. How will 

SEVIS perform in terms of stopping such a problem? 

Mr. Edson. From my understanding of the case that you have described the documents were_. 

Chairman McKeon. _fraudulently obtained? 

Mr. Edson. Fraudulently obtained, but legitimate documents. And if students over the course of 

visa interviews overseas carried off this misrepresentation, they would likely obtain visas on the 

assumption that the documents were rarified in SEVIS. So there is not anything other than our 

instincts in interviewing them that would catch them overseas in these circumstances. Where they 

had complicity from inside the university, I think it would be the tale end, when they did not show 

up in school in the United States that is when we would catch them. 

Ms. Sposato. The system would help, in one way for the State Department, if you remember, we 

showed you an I 20 form with a bar code on it, if it were a false I 20 form, if it were a falsified 

document, when the State Department went into the system to see about that particular student, 

they would not find that particular student in the system. So it is more secure than a system that is 

based on carrying pieces of paper because pieces of paper can be fraudulently obtain. But no 

system is completely fraud proof. If the perpetrator of the fraud is the designated school official, it 

will be very difficult to defect that fraud unless we have some reason to suspect from our analytic 

work, or until we get to our two-year review of that school. If those two-year reviews are thorough 

enough, we should be able to verify from school records that the person has not actually attended. 
27

Chairman McKeon. But as my understanding is, if they if they come into the country then do not 

come to the school, would SEVIS pick that up then? 

Ms. Sposato. If the school did not enter the registration of the student, then SEVIS would pick it 

up and we could take it from there. But if the school official is the perpetrator of the fraud, they 

have might well enter into the system that the person arrived. 

Chairman McKeon. So the contractors that go out and visit the schools, is there any way when 

they do that, or is there any way in the system that there could be a double-check that one person 

could not have the school of both filling out the I 20, and then indicating that the student had 

actually enrolled? 

Ms. Sposato. Requiring two different entry people. It is not required by the current rule, it is 

certainly something we can look at. 

Chairman McKeon. It seems to me that you testified that January 1st you will be up and running; 

you will have a system. I would hope, that somebody would really look at things like this that 

could be done. One person out of all of the schools that has been identified doing this, that is very 

minor, but that could be the exact person that we do not want in the country. So it seems like we 

have, I guess I do not want to use the words accounting for finding problems, but there should be 

systems set up that would take care of that kind of a situation. 

Ms. Sposato. I can tell you that we will definitely look at that. You are looking at a burden on the 

school; you are requiring two people where one would have done. But there is definitely some 

merit to it. 

Chairman McKeon. I do not want to put burden on the school, but why spend $37 million and all 

this effort to set up something that one person could bypass and make it of no avail. Once you get 

the system up and running, and you said you start in July, how many schools do you currently have 

using the system? 

Ms. Sposato. One thousand have been approved to use the system. 

Chairman McKeon. One thousand have paid the $580? 

Ms. Sposato. No, actually, because the rule was not published, we entered, what I mentioned in 

my testimony, a phased approach of school entry, and basically, we allowed accredited scheduled 

schools, who we have a track record with to apply based on paper, not a site visit to apply, and we 

admit to use SEVIS prior to having a site visit, and that is what these 1,000 or so schools are who 

are using the system today. 

 As of tomorrow, all other schools will be able to apply, will pay their money, have their site 

visits presumably before January and be admitted to use the system, and then immediately after 

that, we will follow and get those 1,000 to pay their money and have their site visits. 
28

Chairman McKeon. Site visit before January first, we are talking October, November, December, 

three months to visit 1,000 schools. 

Ms. Sposato. No, many more than that, but we have three contractors and 1,500 people waiting to 

do it. 

Chairman McKeon. 1,500 people? 

Ms. Sposato. That's right, working for the contractors, a nationwide network. 

Chairman McKeon. So we have over 9,500 schools that will not all be using the system because 

only the ones that would be, others using the system would be bringing in international students. 

Ms. Sposato. I am not sure I understand the question. 

Chairman McKeon. All the schools we have, all of our community colleges, universities, 

proprietary schools across the country do not have to sign up for SEVIS, only the ones that will be 

bringing in international students. 

Ms. Sposato. That is correct. 

Chairman McKeon. So it will be some less than 9,500. 

Ms. Sposato. We are expecting something in that range to apply. 

Chairman McKeon. My records show that that is how many schools we have, 9,576. 

Ms. Sposato. Our information is that there are 7,500 schools actively using our current system, our 

pre-SEVIS.

Chairman McKeon. That would up the number then, probably. 

Ms. Sposato. Probably, something like that. 

Chairman McKeon. I could probably go on for another day, Mr. Chairman, but I see my time is 

up and I yield back my time. 

IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE’S RESPONSES TO CHAIRMAN 

HOWARD P. ‘”BUCK” MCKEON’S QUESTIONS – SEE APPENDIX I 

Chairman Hoekstra. I think I see where the gentleman is going. If you have 1,000 that are up 

now, that means that you will have to do somewhere between 5,000 and 6,500 between now and 

January 1. 

Ms. Sposato. The thousand that are up now are up on the basis of a small group of headquarters 

personnel reviewing their documents. The next 7,000, let us say, are going to be very good by 
29

these three contractors with the nationwide network, and we have over 80 school officers around 

the country who have been trained twice on how to do this. And then we are ready, willing and 

able to support those school officers in this effort between now and January. 

 If we find that more people are applying in Chicago than we expected, we will deploy 

resources to Chicago to deal with the surge. And that is the basic plan for the schools. And if we 

are not able to make a site visit to each and every school prior to the January date, we have left 

room for ourselves in this regulation to make the site visit to the higher risk schools once we 

develop some criteria for that and postpone the site visit for the others until after January. So we 

feel pretty confident. It is a big job and it is an aggressive schedule, but we feel pretty confident 

that we can do this by January and continue it after January. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Well, I am excited about your optimism in getting this right. It looks like a 

big job to me in too long that many schools, and of course the questions in January and February 

will be whether all the schools had their site visit, and then it will be the issue of quality, the 

qualities of site visit and the accuracy of the information and the process by which the schools are 

going through the approval process of the students and those types of things. 

Mr. Tierney. 

Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that goes a little bit to what my question was 

going to be, what is your contingency plan is if your optimism does not bear out? I think it is to 

prioritize and move on. 

Ms. Sposato. That's correct. 

Mr. Tierney. Last October the deputy INS commissioner told me that they were not sure how 

many INS students remain in the country illegally after they complete their education. Is that still 

the case? 

Ms. Sposato. Yes, I believe that is still the case. 

Mr. Tierney. Do we have a plan to identify and take action with respect to that significant number 

of people? 

Ms. Sposato. Into the future, Congress has mandated that INS develop an entry/exit system that 

tracks all entries and all exits. And when that system is fully deployed and in place, it should be a 

relatively easy process to do that. Until that happens, we do have some enforcement plans, we do 

have some exit data about people who leave in some contexts, and one of our analytic plans is to 

take the exit data we have and run it against our SEVIS at that time of students who have 

completed their program and watched the trends and what we see there, but because we do not have 

complete exit data, it is not going to be a perfect situation. 

Mr. Tierney. A House resolution that I mentioned in my opening remarks, one of the provisions 

we put in 3515 is that if a student finished or completed the studies, that they would not get their 

transcript until either they had left the country and gone back home or had arranged to finance on 
30

through legal means. Would that be helpful tool to you? 

Ms. Sposato. It might help quite a bit. We could certainly look at that. 

Mr. Tierney. It seems to me that it may at least have some impact on a fairly good number of 

folks. Dr. Ward, there has been a lot of people, The Washington Post, I think, mentioned it in one 

of their recent articles about men from high risk countries having trouble getting students visas.

You are aware of that issue and can you tell us what are the schools doing in that delay in the 

student's applications and visa processing? 

Mr. Ward. I do not think there is anything they can do. I think we recognize there is a security 

challenge, since the 11th. I think everybody has to have a lot of patience, and I think because our 

intelligence resources cannot pinpoint who our problems are, there is a certain necessity, I think, 

that people who are perfectly innocent get caught in a log jam because of the greater care and 

prudence in issuing visas. 

 They are, of course, specific to certain groups, and I think it is tragic that somebody who is 

about to complete a degree and went home for a vacation cannot now get back in. There are 

individual hardships. I think all of us are trying to weigh the individual difficulty against the fact 

that there is a security challenge. And the State Department is in a position of having to vouch for 

the security of people entering this country. I do not think that they are being prohibited from 

entry. It is just a long delay in getting back in. This is one of those very difficult trade-offs 

between security and fairness. 

Mr. Edson. If I could just add to those comments, we, in the State Department and in the 

intelligence and law enforcement community, we have been working very hard, both to identify the 

criteria used for special scrutiny of particular types of cases and to develop the process that will 

ensure that the cost in terms of time of those that examination is appropriate. Any time we add 

extra time to the process, it will take more time than it used to take, obviously. 

Mr. Tierney. That is why you get the big job. 

Mr. Edson. Sorry about that. But what we are trying to do is to make sure we have processes that 

are changing with time changing as we get experience with this new environment, becoming more 

focused. This, the biggest surge in the special clearance requirement was a requirements against a 

target demographic that was put in place of January 2002. This is the first student season the 

students return, if you will, that we will have to face with that requirement, and I think the 

incredible volume, the additional volume of cases since 9-11, and that caseload in particular, which 

did not target students. It had nothing to do with students, but it swept up a lot of students. That 

strained the resources and the processes in place at the FBI the CIA and the department of State in 

particular. I think we have come a long way toward ensuring that that does not happen in 

December and hopefully it will not happen at all when we hit the next emissions periods for 

schools.

Mr. Tierney. Can you tell me the noncompliance in terms of student visas, does that focus or 

impact on any one particular country or countries where you see more of it happening or is it 
31

spread pretty well across? 

Mr. Edson. From the State Department’s point of view we are picking it anecdotally as we 

process cases overseas so we do not have a statistical basis for identifying that. 

Mr. Ward. I think the magnitude may be fairly low because it is not in the self-interest of a person 

on a student degree who makes an advanced degree and may want to be a professional in the U.S. 

will want eventually to be an immigrant visa, and any irregularity in the student visa is going to 

make it difficult to get an immigrant visa. So the incentive of somebody who wants to stay legally 

as distinct from somebody who wants to be an immigrant with presumably an advanced degree, I 

do not think the incentives are there to do that. 

 I am sure it happens, but I do not think the magnitude is that great. Of course, the SEVIS 

system, by having the schools report the completion of the program, will allow the schools and the 

INS to work together to make sure that person leaves, which, by the, way I did when I completed 

my degree. I received a letter saying within one month you should leave the United States, and of 

course I did. I later came back thankfully, but in those days, it was actually a similar system in 

place in the 1960's. Where your arrival in the school and registration was noted and sent to INS, 

and the completion and you actually received notification of that. So we are really actually going 

back to a computerized version of a system we had when we had far fewer students coming here. 

Mr. Tierney. Thank you. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you. Mr. Osborne. 

Mr. Osborne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple quick questions. Mr. Fine, this is 

sort of a general question, but if you could identify one thing in the short term that you think would 

enhance our security in regard to student visas, what would you recommend? 

Mr. Fine. I believe that the INS is going down the right route. They need to ensure that the highrisk schools receive site visits. They also need to ensure that the school's representatives and the 

INS officers who are overseeing that program are properly trained and know what to put in the 

system. If there is not good information in the system, it can't be used and it can't be helpful. And 

the information that comes out needs to be followed up on. So the SEVIS will help, but it is only 

as good as it is used. 

Mr. Osborne. From what you have seen of the proposal, the SEVIS proposal that we have before 

us, do you feel that there are any obvious loopholes in there from the viewpoint of the Department 

of Justice? 

Mr. Fine. No, I don't believe there are any obvious loopholes. I think they are proceeding down 

the appropriate track. I do have concerns, as I stated, whether they can do all that needs to be done 

to have it fully implemented by January. I do have a concern about part-time students and whether 

part-time students will be covered in the particular categories that we discussed. But by and large, 

I think the plan that they have is a good one. It is just a question of implementing it. Implementing 
32

it in a timely fashion. 

Mr. Osborne. I guess that relates to my next question. Dr. Ward, I believe that you have indicated 

that the January 30th deadline is going to be very difficult to meet, if not impossible, from the 

standpoint of schools. And at the same time, INS has asserted that everyone can be ready. And I 

just want to tell you how you justify or how you would rationalize that discrepancy, and obviously 

somebody is probably not correct here. 

Mr. Ward. Well, we would be happy if everything that we have been assured about today by Ms. 

Sposato is the case. I mean, if I am just crying wolf, I would just say this would be wonderful, and 

January 1 everything is ready, the schools are entered and by the 31st of January everything is 

working. If that were the case, I would regret my testimony. You know, I would be happy about 

it. If there are any system problems in entering the data, if there are problems with the training, 

both of our people and her people, the batch processing, I just simply do not know. And certainly 

the schools that have large numbers of foreign students, like my own, 4,000 foreign students in 

Wisconsin, I have talked to those people. The magnitude of the challenge here is so great they are 

apprehensive it won't be ready. The law of the land, we don't have them right now. Admittedly, 

we have draft regulations. So that all our preparations in this window make me very apprehensive. 

 I would hate to be dishonest in saying that I am confident that everything will be right. I 

hope, and sincerely hope, everything will be right and my anxieties are unfounded. But I think my 

anxieties are well founded and it would be better that we face that reality and that contingency 

rather than just ignore them. 

Mr. Osborne. So are you suggesting that the deadline be extended? 

Mr. Ward. No. What I hope is that if on the deadline there are still some problems, we have a 

contingent deadline, which can then be realistically set for us to complete what cannot be 

completed at that time. I mean, if INS believes they can do this, the best thing is to let's work 

together to see if we can get there; and then if it doesn't work, rather than being a blame situation, 

so then maybe set another deadline that allows to us remove the wrinkles of this very massive 

enterprise. 

Mr. Osborne. Of course, one of the problems of a contingent deadline is that often times can 

become the target very quickly. You look at a fallback and say, well, you know, we really don't 

have to have it done until that time. And that would certainly be a concern. But as I understand it, 

there are really two major problems. Number one, students, many times they would apply to 

multiple universities and colleges and no one for sure knows which one they went to, and when 

they went someplace, often times they wouldn't stay there. Have you addressed those two issues 

with this plan? 

Mr. Ward. Yes. Remember, before, the student may have been issued with I-20s from several 

schools but the visa would be issued for one. Again I think in the old system there was potential 

for there to be a problem, but the system was not designed to create the problem. But I think 

SEVIS is a very effective system of solving almost all the problems that came up in terms of 
33

knowing what students were doing once they were issued a visa. 

 But remember, again, in terms of the security issue, these are half a million people about 

whom we know a lot. They have made applications to schools, they have often had letters of 

recommendation, and we do know a lot about them and we are focused on them, rightly. But it is 

1.5 percent of all visas issued. 

 So I do hope that Congress recognizes this that while we can help address the security issue 

by tightening up this tracking system, there is a huge issue in terms of visitors' visas about whom 

we know much less than we do about students. That is a different issue, I understand, but I do 

think that is another matter that we need on the record. 

Mr. Osborne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Mr. Scott. 

Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The numbers we have heard, about 7,500 to 10,000 

schools, half a million students, give or take, 300 million other border crossings, are those numbers 

about right? 

Ms. Sposato. Yes, I believe they are. 

Mr. Scott. We have heard that analogy, looking for a needle in the haystack. I guess my question 

is whether we are even looking in the right haystack. If this thing gets up and running and is 

working, how many students do we expect at any time to be out of compliance? 

Ms. Sposato. I honestly don't know. 

Mr. Scott. Because of just not getting the paperwork in, right? Nobody knows? Okay. Well, 

after you find somebody out of compliance, what will happen? 

Ms. Sposato. As I described in my testimony, the information will be referred to the enforcement 

part of INS. They have hired a contractor to help them analyze the data about people found to be in 

noncompliance. There will be some contact with the school to ensure that the data is not incorrect, 

that it, you know, wasn't just a failure by the school. 

Mr. Scott. How long after you ascertain that the person is out of compliance, how long will it take 

to a get to that point? How many months? 

Ms. Sposato. Oh, I don't think it should take months. You know, I think that it will be referred 

automatically by the INS district officer who will have the information almost immediately, and 

how long the follow-up takes is going to depend on the situation. The reason they are referring it 

first for an analytic review is to look at things like other databases to see if the person is wanted for 

anything, have they left the country and does our exit system show that. 
34

Mr. Scott. Will this list of students that happen to be out of compliance, I suspect as much by 

trifling paperwork as any kind of indication of terrorism, how does all of this relate to protecting 

the country from terrorists? We heard about people getting in on fraudulent visas. What portion 

get fraudulent visas, what portion of those are terrorists and what portion of those are just cheating 

to get an education? Is there any reason why we ought to looking at this haystack at all, rather than 

the other 299-1/2 million border crossings? What makes this group so dangerous? 

Ms. Sposato. It is not my position that this is a particularly dangerous group. I think the INS is 

working on a lot of different programs in a lot of different directions. The hearing today is about 

the student tracking system and the student-tracking program. There is an entry/exit program that 

is a very large endeavor for the INS that is looking at all visitors. 

Mr. Scott. Well, you have high-risk schools and low-risk schools. I have several schools, and 

Dominion University has a lot of international students. If someone is out of compliance, is that 

any cause for alarm that there may be some terrorism going on, or you just have a trifling student 

that just flunked out? 

Ms. Sposato. I don't believe that INS is going to jump to the conclusion that somebody is a 

terrorist because they are out of student status. 

Mr. Scott. Are there any other indicators of danger other than just status? I mean, you have had 

high-risk schools, I mean, somebody taking a history course would be different from somebody 

taking flight training. Yes? No? I mean they are of equal danger? Are they of equal danger? I 

thought all of this was to try to protect us from terrorism. Is just the status of being out of 

compliance an indicator of danger without anything else? I mean, where is the analysis that we 

should even be looking at this haystack? 

Mr. Fine. Mr. Scott, I believe it is not just being out of status is not necessarily an indicator of 

danger. But I do believe that this is one effort that needs to be taken to ensure that the INS knows 

where students are, knows if they are out of status, and can look at other measures to take with 

regard to prioritizing; whether there is other intelligence information regarding them or if they are 

looking for a student and want to find a particular student, where that student is. Is that student in 

status or not? I totally agree that that this is just one small measure in a larger picture. 

Mr. Scott. If I can ask the INS where in this chart it will it make it more difficult, if you have a 

terrorist who will be careful with his paperwork, how will this operation protect us from terrorism? 

Ms. Sposato. In and of itself, SEVIS is not a system that is intended to prevent terrorism. It is 

intended to track people and their immigration status as a student. So if a terrorist is scrupulous 

about attending class and maintaining his status, there is nothing in this system that will help us. 

However, the State Department and the INS have other processes in place in which they are doing 

their best to prohibit the admission of people who are suspected terrorists. 

Mr. Scott. Can I ask one other question, Mr. Chairman, to Mr. Fine, the Inspector General of the 

U.S. Department of Justice? Of all the things we could spend money on, is this high priority? 
35

Mr. Fine. I don't know if this is the highest priority. I do think this should be a priority along, 

with the entry/exit system, in order to determine the status of students and to prevent the complete 

dysfunctional program that exists right now. We have no idea whether students attended or not. 

Mr. Scott. In terms of protecting us from terrorism should this be a high priority? 

Mr. Fine. I think this should be a high priority, yes. 

Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you Mr. Scott. Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate Mr. Scott's questions. I am disappointed 

that you wouldn't answer them. We are getting the same treatment from you that we get in other 

committees from the INS. Can you confirm for me or not that some colleges offer exchange or 

temporary students Social Security cards if they will come to their school, even though they don't 

work? 

Ms. Sposato. I don't know that to be the case. 

Mr. Johnson. I know it is the case in some instances. Maybe you shook your head. Are you 

aware?

Mr. Ward. No. 

Mr. Johnson. If someone comes to a school and doesn't work but is given a work permit, do you 

in INS; are you the ones that give work permits? 

Ms. Sposato. Well, we don't give Social Security cards. 

Mr. Johnson. I understand. I didn't ask you that question. I asked you if you gave work permit to 

students.

Ms. Sposato. There are some situations in which a student is allowed to work on an F- and M-visa 

under this system. And those are largely situations where the work is related to the course of study, 

like nursing or something like that. But by and large when you come on a student visa, you are not 

here to work. 

Mr. Johnson. But they do issue work permits, is that true or false? 

Ms. Sposato. You don't get a separate work permit, so to speak. You can be authorized under 

your student visa to do a limited amount of work related to your course of studies. And that is 

recorded in the system and authorized. 

Mr. Johnson. Okay. Do you track those students? 
36

Ms. Sposato. Yes. That is tracked in the system. A school has to report that it is authorizing that 

kind of work related to study, and they have to put that into the system. 

Mr. Johnson. And then they are authorized to get a Social Security card, is that not true? 

Mr. Ward. Yeah, it is automatic. 

Mr. Johnson. And your system doesn't talk to the Social Security system, I don't think. 

Mr. Ward. I think what you are hearing is that under a student visa you can apply for permission 

to work on campus. 

Mr. Johnson. Right. Is it part-time or full-time? I understand some of them are full-time. 

Mr. Ward. They might be. But the majority is part-time. It would be would dependent on the 

academic rules that prevent full- and part time, too. That would be entered in as a characteristic of 

this student that there was a request obviously for some part-time work. I don't know about the full 

time, because I think there would be some academic problems with that. Then I believe it is 

automatic that you can, upon receiving permission to work receive a Social Security number. 

Mr. Johnson. You can apply for one. And theoretically the Social Security Administration will 

give it to you. They will check with INS to see that they have, I think, legal right to work. Go 

ahead.

Ms. Sposato. That is correct. They do check with INS about the status of the individual who is 

applying for a Social Security card. 

Mr. Johnson. When the student goes back home or leaves the country for any reason, what 

happens to the Social Security number? 

Ms. Sposato. I believe the Social Security number is maintained. 

Mr. Johnson. The Social Security Administration issues a Social Security number for life. If a 

person leaves the country and comes back in, he still has that Social Security number. Now, what 

is to prevent a terrorist from coming back in under a student visa, having already obtained a Social 

Security number, and using that as a method of identification in this country which it is being used 

day in and day out? Do you at INS check that stuff? 

Ms. Sposato. Well, we are not checking people's Social Security numbers. I mean, in order to get 

the student visa, they would have to apply to a school and be accepted. 

Mr. Johnson. Does the inspector know anything about that? 

Mr. Fine. No, I don't know anything about the Social Security checking by the INS. I don't. 
37

Mr. Johnson. Do the computers of all our agencies talk to one another? In other words, I am told 

that State and INS and Social Security, none of them talk to each other. Is that true or false, or are 

they trying to get there? 

Mr. Fine. I wouldn't say that none of them talk to each other. They are trying to improve the 

communication, interagency, of information technology. I know there is significant interaction 

between the State Department and the INS. 

Mr. Edson. Between the State Department and the INS, we have had data sharing arrangements 

for over a decade now. All of our non-visa, our immigrant visa records are available to the 

Immigration and Naturalization Service. 

Mr. Johnson. I would appreciate it if you would check student work visas into your program so 

we know in the future if these people are coming over here under any pretense at all to get a work 

permit and a Social Security number and thereby circumvent the system. 

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the time. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you. It is my understanding Mr. Tiberi, you have no questions. All 

right.

Ms. McCollum, I understand have you a few additional questions. Recognized for five 

minutes. 

Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You only have so many dollars to work with at the 

INS. I am just trying to figure out how much we should be asking for you. I am not criticizing 

you; working with you on the dollars that you have. 

 To the Department of Justice in your testimony on page four, and I quote, "We conclude 

that unless the INS devotes sufficient resources and effort to implementing and using SEVIS 

effectively, many of its current problems in tracking and monitoring foreign students who come to 

the United States to attend school will continue to exist." 

 And that is the spirit in which I ask the question. Where is the budget on this? What should 

I be working on to help appropriate? Are we going to make this a fee-driven system if we don't 

support it here, that all of a sudden students and our colleges and universities are paying for the 

federal government's responsibility in keeping the homeland safe? 

Ms. Sposato. Congress has mandated that the SEVIS system be developed, that it be developed by 

a certain date, and that a student fee maintain it. So I think those are things that as a career 

employee, those are a given for me. I realize that the Congresswoman would like to have the 

budget, and that is material I will provide to you after the hearing. 

Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would like to go back to when I asked about highrisk and low-risk schools. Maybe I misunderstood a statement that was made out there, because I 
38

am hearing two conflicting things. And maybe you can clear this up for me, whomever at the table. 

I hear, and I see in documentation from the Justice Department, clearly talking about high-risk and 

low-risk schools. When I asked INS about high-risk and low-risk schools, I was given information 

that I heard you to say that really doesn't have an assessment as to which schools are high-risk and 

low-risk. So why do we have confusion right here at the table? 

Ms. Sposato. As I explained, INS does intend to set its priorities for its site visits based upon some 

risk analysis of which schools are, and we have more information about, and therefore are less risk 

to us. We have yet to do that risk analysis, so we have not set any priorities for the site visits. We 

have plenty of contractors available to begin them, and that is something we plan to do over the 

course of the Fall. So we do not have schools in categories of high or low risk. And I think it is a 

complicated problem. You have to ask yourself what kind of risk is you talking about: a risk that 

the school won't comply with SEVIS, a risk that the school doesn't exist, or a risk that the school 

will admit terrorist applicants. So all of that are things we have to look at over the fall and make 

some determinations about. Maybe the Inspector General wants to address it. 

Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chairman, if Mr. Fine could help me out with this. 

Mr. Fine. Obviously schools that are accredited institutions, universities, colleges that have been 

accredited, have been complying with the SEVIS, with the foreign student program, would be less 

of a risk. And there is no question about the bona fides. That doesn't necessarily mean that down 

the road they shouldn't be visited or certified to see whether they are complying with the 

requirements of SEVIS. 

 But smaller vocational schools, flight schools, language schools, they seem to fit into the 

category of a higher risk for not complying with the foreign student program requirements. 

Ms. McCollum. Well, Mr. Chairman, here is where some of my problem with the high risk/low 

risk comes in. Because we had a situation, a tragic situation on September 11th that dealt with 

individuals who attended flight schools, we have assumed that all terrorists who come in under 

student visas are going to go to either vocational school or training school. 

 To Mr. Scott's point, if I am savvy, I keep up on my paperwork, and if I am a terrorist I can 

go any place and maybe even not be out there where State, Justice, or INS are looking at me. I 

might already have taken my flight training back in country X. 

 So I would really like to understand, and we don't have to get into it today, Mr. Chairman, 

should we be determining the risk of the school or should we be working with the State Department 

to determine the risk of the person? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you. I think that hopefully the steps here that we are putting in place 

address all of those issues that the State Department, through the process, is going back and 

assessing the risk of individuals that are applying for student visas. That is what I am 

understanding part of the delay is out at the embassies around the world, is that there is now more 

work required of State Department folks to assess people coming in. Is that correct? 
39

Mr. Edson. That is correct. Both State Department folks in the field are interviewing process and 

review process in the field, and then in addition, for people who cross certain thresholds established 

in cooperation with the intelligence and law enforcement folks, special clearance procedures 

requiring a review back here in Washington. 

Chairman Hoekstra. And then I think what Mr. Scott and you were both talking about is the risk 

of the institutions and terrorists. I think what we asked the INS to do is we want them to put in 

better procedures to track the 300 million visitors that we get every year. And the small piece of 

responsibility that this subcommittee has is for those 500,000 students that come in on student 

visas. Just saying this nation wants a better system of tracking, number one, determining who we 

are going to permit in, and then tracking when they come in under a certain set of requirements, we 

hold those people to those requirements that we agree to when they decide to visit. 

 In student visas, they are going to come and go to school, and when that commitment is 

ended for whatever reason, we expect them to leave. And it is the same thing that you've have on 

visitor visas where people agree to come in for a certain period of time, and the responsibility for 

INS is going to be if they agree to come in for 90 days or they agree to come in for 180 or a year, 

when that visa expires the expectation that it will either be renewed or whatever or they will leave 

the country. And that is INS's responsibility to make sure that they monitor the folks that we let in. 

 INS probably can't necessarily determine the terrorist, and actually the risk may be the 

schools that are out there that in the past have not complied and have not, you now, gone through 

the process. Those may end up being a higher risk to us than perhaps what their curriculum is. But 

that is what we will wait for INS to determine exactly how they identify what schools are higher 

risk rather than lower risk. And if they come out with a ranking mechanism that we don't agree 

with, we may decide to give them a little bit more guidance and correction from Congress as to 

how they define high and low risk. 

 With that I will yield to my colleague Mr. McKeon. 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have enjoyed this hearing today. I think it's 

been very enlightening. It has I think shown how large the problem is. When we live in a free 

society and have basically open borders, it is pretty easy to get into the country when we see 300 

million entrances and exits a year. Five hundred thousand of them are students, and we focus just 

on students today. Even though 2 of the 18 terrorists came in on student visas, that is the 

jurisdiction of this committee is education, so that is our part of the responsibility. 

 But it looks to me like a huge problem, looks to me like we have a lot of people that are 

working very hard to do a better job of keeping track of people; that it seems to me, if a terrorist 

really wanted to, they could find a way to come in, whether it be a student visa or other kind of 

visiting visa. But as I said, our responsibility is the education part and the student visas. So I have 

two more specific questions and then a recommendation. 

 For the INS again, is INS fully prepared to certify or recertify schools through the SEVIS 

system by January 31, 2003? The inexperience of those schools seeking certification under the 

volunteer program reported delays of 30 days to be given password authority into SEVIS. Is this 
40

system capable of handling this function in a timely manner? 

Ms. Sposato. Well, I believe that we are. The 30-day delay, you know, you don't get your 

password to get into the system until we have looked at you and determined that you warrant entry 

into the system. The schools that have been given that authority already have been given it by a 

core group of a small group of headquarters employees. We have 80 employees-plus in the field, 

ready to receive these investigative reports. And we have a contingency plan where we will 

prioritize things if we are flooded with applications on the last day. I neglected to say that. 

Chairman McKeon. I don't mean to be critical, but that reminds me of a problem we had with 

student loans a few years back. You get to a point where you are getting further and further 

behind. We have basically three months left, and my familiarity with the schools indicates that 

they take off a few weeks in December. There are not going to be people there to work. And I am 

really concerned. From July till now, we put in 1,000 schools and those were schools we already 

were working with, and some of those we found aren't even schools. And then in the next 30 days 

we are planning on putting in the other 55-, 65-, 7,500. I just think we are probably not being 

realistic, and as has been mentioned, we probably better have a fallback position and be realistic 

about that. 

 Next question. Will all F and J individuals, new or continuing arriving on or after February 

1st, 2003, be required to have a SEVIS document, or will documents issued before January 31, 

2003 be considered valid for entry? Or will F and J visas currently, I will give this to you and you 

can answer this in the record. In fact, I will just do that and not have to have you write that all out 

right now. 

Chairman McKeon. But I would like to commend you for the work you are doing. I think this is 

very important work. And it is a huge job. And I guess it has been pointed out by others in their 

questioning, even if we tracked every single student, even if they all complied, I don't know if we 

have adequate information here in SEVIS indicating if a student enrolls and then does attend class 

for 30 days because many schools don not take attendance. I don't know how we will know if they 

are there, and we don't know if they drop out, how will we ever get this information to the 

appropriate law enforcement that they could look up, and then after they have looked them up and 

found them, found if they just tired of going to school or were in fact a terrorist? It is a very large 

country and a very big problem. 

 The recommendation I have when you go through this chart that you have shown us on the 

SEVIS here, and you are going to address information that goes back and forth between the schools 

after they have selected and are in the original process, if you write those regulations before that is 

finally disseminated, would you pick a few people from the schools that actually deal with this and 

run that by them before you send it out as something official? 

Ms. Sposato. The regulations that we published in May set forth the requirements, the proposed 

requirements for the schools, and the information that they need to enter into SEVIS and the timing 

for that. And the schools have commented, which is one of the reasons that it takes time to get 

your final regulations out. But we do have many comments from the schools. 
41

Chairman McKeon. So you are not writing more; you are just going to write a final document. 

Ms. Sposato. That is correct, based on the comments that we have. 

Chairman McKeon. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Hoekstra. I just want to reinforce, I think, the point that Ms. McCollum was making a 

little bit earlier. She asked about the funding. I think what you are driving at, and maybe you can 

correct me, but concerning the fees, we don't want to come back in February or March and hear that 

SEVIS isn't working because you didn't have enough resources. 

Ms. Sposato. I understand that. 

Chairman Hoekstra. That is, I think she was providing you with the opportunity to say, well, you 

know, Congress just hasn't given us the resources to make this system work the way that you want. 

And you know, if we come back in March or April of next year and find out that SEVIS is not up 

and functioning it is not working for the schools, the contractors didn't work out, and then if INS 

comes back and you said, well, you asked us to do that on the cheap, how could you have expected 

us to get that done. This was your opportunity to say we can't do it with those resources or under 

those constraints. All right. 

Mr. Scott. 

Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to follow up a little bit that 299-1/2 border 

crossings; we are trying to find those who are going to be a danger to society. What we try to do is 

look at articulated indicia of guilt. It just seems to me that student status is not a good indicator. I 

mean, particularly when you don't separate the courses. I think somebody taking a history course 

as opposed to somebody taking a course in explosives would constitute different kind of indication 

of suspicion. 

 There are a lot of people crossing the border every day. You have got to focus your 

resources, and you mentioned 80 employees once, you mentioned 1,500 contractors some other 

time. That is a lot of assets that a great deal of focus of our agency sets on this. And I frankly 

haven't heard why we ought to be so suspicious of people going to major universities taking 

courses as opposed to a lot of other places we could be focusing the resources, particularly if these 

things worked. The INS has indicated that we are going to know it immediately. 

 I think the gentleman from California indicated, you know, if you drop out of school, even 

if the thing works perfectly, you are not going to know for several months. If somebody is here for 

evil purposes, it is going to be months down the line before this system can ever catch up with him. 

 Maybe somebody can indicate why we ought to be suspicious of students more than 

workers, visitors, or anybody else. Where is the indication that this is a dangerous group of people 

to be looking at? 
42

Ms. Sposato. I would like to reply on that. I am not somebody who is suspicious of students. I 

think they are a wonderful addition. I went to a college that had many foreign students. I think 

they were a wonderful addition to my college and my university. And I am not particularly 

suspicious of students. Congress passed a law that required INS to put in place this tracking 

system, and that is what we are about. It is not a suspicion particularly of students. 

Mr. Scott. Dr. Ward, should we be suspicious of these students? 

Mr. Ward. No, but I do think that in a new security available with the aid of computers with 

massive data capacity, dealing with immigrant, with visitor and student status in a more systematic 

way is a good idea. I don't think it can be a substitute for intelligence. It does strike me if we have 

the capacity to do something like SEVIS, which, of course, is really just replacing what we did on 

paper some time ago, I do think there is some value in systematically dealing with these things. It 

also I think will treat students better, because one of the problems of the current systematic system 

is there are often logjams and poor treatment in getting the visa, just because the management 

structure was not effectively cross-wired between the Department of Education, the State 

Department and so on. 

 So I see this simply as a management improvement that will have some possibility of 

filtering out security issues. But ultimately security is an intelligence issue. I think the data 

systems we have now permit us to do that. 

Mr. Scott. Does this seem to you to be a particularly complicated data entry system? Because all I 

saw up there was name, address, and a couple of other things. 

Mr. Ward. In scale it is; but not in complexity, no. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Thank you Mr. Scott. 

 You have asked the question a couple of times why we are tracking or why we are asking 

these folks to track this information. They are tracking because Congress told them to. 

Mr. Scott. Well Mr. Chairman, I don't think that means that it is necessarily the right thing to do. 

Chairman Hoekstra. No, I know. 

Mr. Scott. We have heard the word "intelligence" used around here. 

Chairman Hoekstra. But it was actually the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant 

Responsibility Act of 1996. Probably went through the Judiciary Committee. 

Mr. Scott. I am sure it did. 

Chairman Hoekstra. And under there, it says, you know, the Attorney General shall develop and 

conduct a program to collect from approved institutions of higher education and designated 
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exchange visitor programs of the United States the information subscribed in subsection C and, you 

know, have the status, or applying for the status of non-immigrants under subparagraph F, J, or M. 

And I think those must be your student visas. 

 So, yes, these folks are just responding to what you in your ultimate wisdom as part of the 

Judiciary Committee asked them to do and what you had the rest of Congress to agree to do. And I 

don't know whether you voted for that bill or not. 

Ms. McCollum. I wasn't here. 

Chairman Hoekstra. Ms. McCollum was not here. We will leave it at that. I don't think there are 

any additional questions. I would like to thank the witnesses, the members, for their time today. 

Thank you for participating here. And the joint subcommittees stand adjourned. 

 [Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the joint subcommittees were adjourned.] 
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TABLE OF INDEXES 

Chairman Hoekstra, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 31 

Mr. Edson, 8, 12, 26, 30, 31, 37, 39 

Mr. Fine, 8, 9, 20, 21, 24, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 

Mr. Holt, 7 

Mr. Johnson, 35, 36, 37 

Mr. McKeon, 5, 25, 26, 27, 28, 39, 40, 41 

Mr. Osborne, 31, 32, 33 

Mr. Scott, 33, 34, 35, 41, 42 

Mr. Tierney, 3, 29, 30, 31 

Mr. Ward, 17, 30, 31, 32, 35, 36, 42 

Ms. McCollum, 24, 25, 37, 38, 43 

Ms. Sposato, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42