File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0111, message 146


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.






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