New immigration laws may affect international students

The Office of International Services held their first ever town meeting Monday to address new… The Office of International Services held their first ever town meeting Monday to address new laws that could affect more than 3,000 internationals in the Pitt community.

To deal with a new set of laws and regulations that OIS director David Bryan Clubb said were “unprecedented in scope and complexity,” OIS staff presented new updates affecting primarily F-status and J-status non-immigrants. These non-immigrants include Pitt’s international students, professors, research scholars and exchange visitors, and their dependents. The staff members then answered questions from the audience regarding what Pitt’s international community should do to meet the new guidelines.

Clubb said he hopes the meeting will be the first of many to inform Pitt’s international community of changes in federal non-immigrant policies.

“The key to all this is communication,” he said. “If communication breaks down, there will inevitably be serious problems.”

New federal legislation and programs, including the Homeland Security Act of 2002, have caused many of the policy changes. Starting March 1, the Immigration and Naturalization Service will be dissolved and its functions will be reassigned to two bureaus within the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The new departments will also have authority to veto the State Department consular offices’ power to issue visas to non-immigrants. This may mean it will take longer and be more difficult to get visas, Clubb said.

Linda Gentile, associate director and adviser to foreign students and scholars, explained the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, which is a computerized tracking system to monitor international students and scholars. The system was put in place to meet the requirements of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 and the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001.

Gentile said OIS will be using the computerized tracking system to supply information to immigration authorities and to issue forms. All current international students and scholars must be registered in the database by Aug. 1. International students and scholars are also required to submit information about dependents on separate forms to the tracking system.

New regulations regarding the computerized tracking system will place specific controls on international students’ academic programs in the United States. International students are required to maintain a full course of study unless they obtain OIS authorization to take fewer courses. Spouses of international students are currently restricted from full time study outside recreational or vocational study, and their children are limited to elementary and secondary schooling. The federal government may soon impose similar restrictions on the dependents of other scholars as well.

Before the tracking system is fully implemented, the U.S. State Department will issue visas with the help of the Interim Student and Exchange (Visitor) Authentication System, which allows U.S. consulates around the world to verify information electronically about non-immigrants.

Gentile also explained regulations regarding Special Registration into the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System. The new federal guidelines require males born on or before November 1986 who are nationals or citizens from a list of 26 countries, to undergo special registration at ports of entry or at INS offices. The U.S. Department of Justice justified the new regulations after determining that aliens from those nations pose a heightened national security risk. The list includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, among others. The regulations exclude U.S. lawful permanent residents and those who have applied for and been granted asylum.

Clubb said that international students and scholars, the faculty and staff that work with them, and OIS would have to work together to meet the new guidelines. The OIS staff advised internationals to maintain a valid passport at all times, to obtain the proper authorization for working in the United States and informing OIS of any dependents, changes in name or address, or travel plans outside the United States, and for their non-immigrant status to coordinate with the activities they are pursuing in the United States.

Students, faculty and staff can receive more information concerning immigration law updates and procedures by subscribing to the OIS listserv by e-mailing majordomo@list.pitt.edu and typing “subscribe ois” into the e-mail message.