From: valston-AT-email.arizona.edu Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 13:09:39 -0700 Subject: U.S. Checks on Mideast Students The following story comes from the New York Times ... http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/national/12STUD.html November 12, 2001 THE STUDENTS In Sweeping Campus Canvasses, U.S. Checks on Mideast Students By JACQUES STEINBERG In the two months since the attacks of Sept. 11, federal investigators have contacted administrators on more than 200 college campuses to collect information about students from Middle Eastern countries, the most sweeping canvass of the halls of academia since the cold war, the colleges say. The agents have asked what subjects the students are studying, whether they are performing well and where they are living. They have also questioned the students themselves, asking about their views on Osama bin Laden, the names of their favorite restaurants and their plans for after graduation. The investigations have put the universities in a difficult position, pitting the government's interest in security against the institutions' desire to protect students' privacy and to avoid engaging in racial profiling. But in the end, a national survey of college registrars found, nearly all the universities approached have readily supplied answers to the government's questions, largely because the law appears to be on the government's side. The agents, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, have used those conversations as the basis for interviewing dozens of students. "" The college officials who have been sought out — including those at Columbia University, Tufts University and San Diego State University —"" Larry Bell, director of international education at the University of Colorado in Denver, said that federal agents had visited his office or the registrar's office five times in recent weeks. Mr. Bell said that the agents had interviewed at least 50 students from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and other Arab countries. He said he did not believe any had been arrested or linked to a terrorist cell. """" Mindful that a terrorist with a student visa participated in the Sept. 11 attacks, the federal agencies said they were seeking to mine further leads and to begin making good on the president's promise to ensure that the half-million foreign students studying here were accounted for on their campuses. """" Still, the sudden appearance of agents in college buildings and the government's plans to expand such surveillance have heightened the anxiety on campuses already jittery because of the terrorist attacks and the anthrax scares. """" The Saudi student in Colorado, who asked not to be identified, said that two agents from the F.B.I. and another from the I.N.S. arrived at his apartment unannounced on a Wednesday evening about a month ago. The agents said they had gotten his name from two other Saudi students who had been briefly detained after they had been observed taking photographs of the university's sports arena. The photographs were for a photography class, Mr. Bell said. """" """" In a survey by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, 220 colleges reported that they had been contacted at least once by the F.B.I. or the I.N.S. after Sept. 11 about the status of foreign students. Nearly a quarter of those institutions reported multiple contacts. A federal immigration official, who insisted on anonymity, said that the colleges had been identified in the belief that foreign students there might have information that would assist the government's inquiry. "" the official said. Under federal immigration law, the government is entitled to much of the information it has sought. As a condition of most education visas, a foreign student signs a waiver permitting a college to let immigration officials know when the student arrived on campus, how many credits the student had earned and whether the student's field of study or mailing address had changed. Though college administrators are required to collect such information, they said that the government asked them to stop sending it to Washington years ago, in part because the I.N.S. could not scale the mountain of paperwork. But in the weeks since Sept. 11, federal officials have been aggressively gathering such records and more. The colleges comply for financial and legal reasons. By alienating the government, a school could risk losing its authority to request visas for foreign students, most of whom pay full tuition. """" The scrutiny of students of Arab descent has so far touched off little protest, a stark contrast to the outrage when American-born students have been profiled by university or law enforcement officials. In 1992, the campus of the State University of New York College at Oneonta was riven for weeks after the college provided the state police with a list of every black and Hispanic student in an investigation of an assault on an elderly woman. In the current investigation, federal agents have contacted Columbia University two or three times and interviewed at least one foreign student, said Virgil Renzulli, a spokesman for the school. Mr. Renzulli said he did not believe that the student was arrested. At San Diego State University, the government has sought information about many of the 60 students from the Middle East because, university officials said, two of the hijackers lived in San Diego and had ties to the Muslim community. University officials said that the authorities later arrested one San Diego State student and transported him to New York, where he was being held as a material witness. But the investigation on the San Diego campus continues. On Wednesday, immigration officials delivered a written request to the university seeking information about the locations and studies of 40 students from Arab nations, a request that the university intends to honor. --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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