INS Sharply Cuts Length of Tourist, Student Visa Stays

WASHINGTON — The Immigration and Naturalization Service, seeking to close gaps exploited by the Sept. 11 hijackers, said Monday it will sharply reduce the length of time many foreign students and millions of other travelers may spend in the United States.

INS Commissioner James W. Ziglar said his agency was seeking “the appropriate balance” between enforcing the law and welcoming legitimate visitors. “While we recognize the overwhelming majority who come to us as visitors are honest and law-abiding,” he said, “the events of Sept. 11 remind us there will always be those who seek to cause us harm.”

Immigration officials said many tourist visas would be slashed from the current six months to 30 days or less, based on what INS inspectors say is “fair and reasonable.”

In addition, the INS would immediately prohibit foreign visitors from enrolling in U.S. schools unless they had obtained student visas. Until now, foreign students have been allowed to begin classes in America if their student visa applications were pending.

The flurry of INS actions follows embarrassing revelations that the agency had notified a Florida flight school that visas were in order for two of its students--six months after they had hijacked two jetliners and piloted them into the World Trade Center.

That gaffe sparked a public rebuke from President Bush and renewed calls to overhaul the immigration service.

INS officials plan to seek public comment on the revisions immediately, and they expect the new rules affecting nonstudents to take effect this summer. No congressional action is necessary.

Under the revisions, the INS would:

* Require foreign travelers on U.S. visas to explain why they needed a specified amount of time inside the United States. Immigration inspectors would be directed to grant tourists 30 days if it was unclear how much time they actually needed to accomplish the aims of their trip. The INS also plans to reduce the maximum stay for travelers on business visas to six months from the current 12 months.

* Grant extensions “for unexpected or compelling humanitarian reasons,” such as medical treatment, but limit them to six months rather than the current 12 months.

* Demand that foreigners who intend to enroll in U.S. schools make such plans known before entering this country with some other visa status. Foreign visitors with nonstudent status would still be allowed to apply for student status inside the United States, but only if they declared that intention when they first applied to enter this country. The INS said it would attempt to process requests to change visa status in 30 days.

It was not immediately clear how many people would be affected by the new rules. About 75% of foreign visitors depart within 30 days, immigration officials said. The INS also pledged flexibility for cases that did not involve national security, such as foreign retirees who own vacation homes inside the United States.

The administration plan targets the complex visa system for a specific reason--all 19 hijackers are believed to have entered the country on legal visas approved at U.S. consulates in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. However, the great majority of foreign visitors come from Canada, western European nations and other countries whose citizens may enter without visas.

In fact, Zacarias Moussaoui, the only suspect charged in the United States in connection with the Sept. 11 hijackings, had a French passport and did not need a visa when he entered the United States.

And as many as 300,000 illegal immigrants are believed to enter the United States annually through the nation’s porous land borders, mostly via Mexico.

“It’s a targeted response, rather than a heavy-handed response,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigration group. “At least they’re dealing with the issues related to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.”

But foreign student advocates were wary. Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Mohamed Atta of Egypt and Marwan Al-Shehhi of the United Arab Emirates, came to the United States on visitor visas. They enrolled in a Florida flight school in July 2000, more than a year before the INS approved their student visas. Such enrollments would be prohibited under the new rules.

Another hijacker, Hani Hanjour, who helped crash another hijacked jet into the Pentagon, had a student visa for a Bay Area English-language school but never showed up for classes.

Victor Johnson, public policy director at NAFSA, an association of international educators, maintained that the nation’s 550,000 foreign students represented just 2% of temporary visa holders and that the majority had gotten approval to study in the United States before enrolling in school.

“I understand the political pressure that the INS is under,” he said. “But the fact is that, had the new requirements been in effect prior to Sept. 11, they wouldn’t have had any effect at all [on the terrorist attack]. . . . Anything that focuses solely on the foreign students doesn’t get you anywhere in the war on terrorism.”

It appeared that the change in student rules might have a significant effect on certain types of programs, notably the intensive English training that is often sought by foreign visitors to the United States. Some educators expressed concern that new rules could result in a sharp decline in the estimated 200,000 foreign students who annually enroll in English-language programs at U.S.-based academies, colleges and universities.

There are no firm data, but some say language students are less likely to apply for separate visas than foreigners seeking formal degrees.

“If all flexibility is removed from the system, then this would have a very serious impact on English-language programs in the States,” said Peter Thomas, who directs international programs at UC San Diego Extension and is also president-elect of the American Assn. of Intensive English Programs.

Some predicted that the changes--placing greater demands on INS staff--would overwhelm an agency already reeling from bulging backlogs. Cutting back tourist visas from six months to 30 days, critics say, could damage the tourist industry in places such as Southern California, where foreign tourism is crucial.

“The immigration service workload is going to mushroom,” said Carl Shusterman, an immigration attorney in Los Angeles and former INS counsel. He noted that the agency began granting six-month visitors’ visas a decade ago in an effort to cut down on applications from legitimate visitors seeking extensions.

“This is a step backwards,” he said. “They’re going to be buried in extension applications.”

Among some who seek to restrict immigration, the various proposed rules were greeted with lukewarm support. Steven A. Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a restrictionist group, approved the strategy of clamping down on the length of stay of foreign visitors, maintaining that it has been too easy for people to live in the United States on temporary visas.

“These are good small steps,” he said. “They’re helpful. To protect the country against terrorism we need a lot of steps, big and small.”

INS officials Monday also proposed a rule demanding that those subject to deportation turn themselves in within 30 days of a deportation order or sacrifice their few remaining opportunities to avoid removal.