VICTORIA GILMAN, C&EN WASHINGTON

"For many Chinese students, it's like a dream to study in the U.S.," says Paul Tang, a Ph.D. chemistry student at Purdue University. For Tang's family, the dream came true when his wife was admitted to the University of Missouri to study electrical engineering in the fall of 2001. And because Tang believed in that dream, he left his Ph.D. program in Germany to join her and offer his support.

Tang, whose given name is Qngyong, is a Chinese citizen, as is his wife. To enter the U.S., his wife applied for and received a category F-1 visa, the most common visa type issued to foreign graduate students. Tang was issued an F-2 visa, meaning he was authorized to enter the U.S. as the spouse of an F-1 student. At the time, getting these types of student visas was mostly a standard procedure.

Within days of the Tangs' arrival in early September 2001, tragedy struck the U.S., and everything changed.

The events of Sept. 11, 2001, have had ramifications throughout the fabric of American life, especially in areas dealing with foreign policy. A flurry of new amendments to visa issuance has created a storm of long delays and outright denials, causing many international students and scholars to miss classes and conferences, avoid trips back to their home countries, or decide not to come to the U.S. at all (C&EN, March 17, page 40). The changes have presented a particular problem for foreign citizens who want to study science in the U.S. because their topics of interest bring them under greater scrutiny.

The long waits and increased uncertainty have left many policymakers struggling to strike the right balance between maintaining the flow of international education and protecting national security. Those involved seem to universally agree that no one knows just yet what long-term effects the new visa policies will have on the academic and scientific communities.

"Sept. 11 changed a lot about the way we process visas," says Stuart E. Patt, a spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the U.S. Department of State. These changes, he says, affect all categories of nonimmigrants coming to the U.S., be they students, tourists, or businesspeople. The biggest change is a redistribution of authority that has created closer ties between immigration and national security.

A visa is not actually a permit to enter the country; it is merely a stamp of approval from the State Department that a person is eligible to travel to the U.S. as far as a port of entry. There, a U.S. immigration officer has final authority to approve entry. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 officially transferred immigration services to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which then changed the Immigration & Naturalization Service into the new Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration Services. From now on, DHS employees will be ultimately responsible for who comes and goes across U.S. borders.

Even before a visa is issued, all applicants must be thoroughly checked in a security database encompassing information from both U.S. and foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Students must now provide more data than required on previous forms about personal background and reasons for coming to the U.S. In addition, Patt says, students studying the sciences have extra requirements for security review. "These students can certainly expect to take a little longer than routine cases do," he cautions.

As of Aug. 1, 2003, the State Department has required all nonimmigrants seeking visas to appear at a U.S. embassy or consulate for an interview. The resultant increase in the number of people waiting to schedule a meeting is exacerbated by the fact that Congress did not allow for an increase in staff or funds for embassies and consulates to accommodate the new workload.

"The idea that you create this mandate without providing the resources is disingenuous," says Victor Johnson, associate executive director for public policy at NAFSA: Association of International Educators. For students and scholars needing to arrive on time for classes and conferences, "delay is tantamount to denial," he says.

Matt Owens, federal relations officer for the Association of American Universities (AAU), says delays are also a result of the State Department being more cautious. So far, he says, delays ranging from two months to almost a year and a half have been reported, and most of the cases involve students who want to study physical sciences or engineering. Mike Brzezinski, director of international students and scholars at Purdue, notes that even before the personal appearance requirements came into effect, the extra reviews had caused enough delays last year that about 50 students did not arrive at the school on time.

After an initial outcry from students, schools, and associations, the State Department issued a cable in June asking consular officers to give priority to "students and exchange visitors in the professor, student, and research scholar categories when scheduling interviews this summer." According to Johnson, this action is appreciated but not sustainable. "If we are at the front of the line, someone else is at the back, and they won't want to stay there," he says.

Johnson does give the cable credit for avoiding what he thinks could have been an "apocalyptic outcome" for the summer of 2003. "This year, we haven't had the deluge of horror stories I would have expected," he admits. According to Patt, State Department data show that about 90% of visa cases are now being resolved in less than one month. "For the most part, our experience this summer has been very good. We've had no major problems with the system," he says.

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FOR U.S. UNIVERSITIES, the biggest challenge has been implementing the Student & Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), an electronic system that will track and monitor foreign students.

Sevis was initially scheduled for implementation in February 2003, but Congress extended the deadline and gave universities until August to switch to the system in lieu of the traditional paper forms. Only universities using SEVIS are allowed to accept international applicants, and they must open and maintain a file in SEVIS for an admitted foreign student before a consular office can issue that student a visa.

DHS, which operates SEVIS, reports that as of the end of July, nearly 6,000 schools had complied with the deadline and become eligible to receive foreign students. Many of these schools note, however, that even with the extended deadline, SEVIS was rushed into use, and bugs in the software are contributing to delays in visa processing.

"There was just very little testing of the system before it went live," Brzezinski says. "SEVIS also created a great deal of administrative burden and cost us thousands of dollars to comply. We had to begin a special fee for processing international students to cover the cost." But Brzezinski believes that an electronic system is superior to paper records and that SEVIS will improve as it matures.

In fact, AAU's Owens says the higher education community had been looking forward to having an electronic system for tracking international students but is not pleased that it had to be rushed. "As the system works itself out, it will be very beneficial," he says.

Along with the new policies and procedures, one of the major changes to affect the visa process has been a shift in attitude toward foreigners entering the U.S. The State Department says the specific criteria for sending applications for additional security clearance are classified, but several sources note that male applicants and people studying sensitive scientific fields are being subjected to extra checks.

"No one wants to be responsible for letting in the next terrorist," says Christine Rutkowski, an administrative analyst for academic personnel in the chemistry department at the University of California, Berkeley. "I've noticed a lot of paranoia on all sides." NAFSA's Johnson agrees. "There's increased concern about what access foreigners should have to U.S. science, and consular officers don't want to take responsibility," he says.

Gregory S. Girolami, head of the chemistry department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, thinks it is highly unlikely that any Ph.D. candidate would pose a security threat. "Ph.D. programs--especially in science--require such a close relationship between student and teacher," he says. The teacher gets to know his or her students on a personal and professional level during the several years it takes to earn the degree. "It's not like the vocational schools where you just pay, show up, and leave a few weeks later," he says.

"It used to be pretty routine for students and scientists to get visas to participate in scientific education programs or professional meetings," says Catherine E. Costello, professor of biochemistry and director of Mass Spectrometry Resource at Boston University School of Medicine. Now with the post-Sept. 11 visa regulations, she sees delays and denials becoming the norm.

"Students who make it here to study and then go home for the holidays are detained for months," Costello says. She cites one example of a biochemistry student from China who attended fall classes and went home for Christmas break. Because of visa issuance delays, the student finally arrived back at school the first week of May. "Some universities are even advising their international students not to go home at all once they get here," Costello says.

Rutkowski, who processes visas for Berkeley's international postdoctorate and faculty appointments, has also seen a rise in scholars and faculty being stranded when they travel overseas. She gives the example of a postdoc from Germany who went home for a conference and was stranded there for three months while his return visa was in review. The scholar had apparently tripped a security alert because his studies applied to weapons research. "These people are losing time in the lab, which slows down research considerably," she says.

TIGHTER SECURITY is becoming a particular problem for Chinese students, who make up the majority of the international student body in the U.S. Although China is not on the State Department's list of countries sponsoring terrorism, increased attention to visa applications is prompting more and more consular officials to deny visas because of suspected intention to immigrate.

"Chinese students have to prove that they have significant personal and economic ties to their home country," Brzezinski says. "They are all considered potential immigrants." Rutkowski says Chinese students have always had a more difficult time obtaining visas. "Historically, they don't go back," she says. But many see the heightened visa reviews as making even the most convincing cases impossible to win.

When Tang was accepted into his Ph.D. program at Purdue, he needed to change his visa from an F-2 to an F-1. Although he would previously have considered going home to change the visa, he saw how the new policies and attitudes were affecting other Chinese students. "Lots of my classmates in China studying similar fields--chemistry, biochemistry--get good offers from U.S. schools but can't get visas," he says.

Because Tang was already in the U.S. on a valid visa, he was considered a third-country national eligible to change the visa at a border post in Canada or Mexico. That meant making an appointment for a personal appearance at whatever post he could. For him, the journey to an unfamiliar country was worth it for a better shot at returning to start his studies.

"Thinking of the difficulties I might meet, I drove 3,000 miles to and from Mexico to get an F-1 visa," Tang says. "I didn't want to take a chance by going back to China. I would very likely be denied reentry if I went back." Once he has his Ph.D., though, Tang says he does want to return home. "My mother died a while back, and my father lives alone. I really want to go back and be with him."

According to Costello, she has been petitioning the State Department for months on behalf of a Chinese student admitted to her department's Ph.D. program. The student, she says, has been to a consulate four times for interviews, and each time she is denied because of suspected intention to immigrate. The interviews each last less than a minute.

"What they are conducting now is a very arbitrary procedure," Costello says. The young woman has a husband, an apartment, and a job waiting for her when she returns to China, but despite letters from Costello and the company holding her job for her return, the student is unable to convince the consulate she will return home after her studies. "It's hard to give a student like this a logical explanation for what is being done to her," she says.

Girolami admits that many Chinese students are motivated to study in the U.S. because they want to stay, but he does not see this as a bad practice. "These are extremely talented people who contribute enormously to the quality of life in this country," he says. He also sees a relatively smaller percentage of young Americans selecting a career in science, making the presence of international researchers even more crucial.

"We are doing a lot as a community to reach out and convince American kids to come into science," he says. But even with outreach efforts like this across the country, the number of native advanced-degree science candidates remains low compared with the numbers from overseas who want to study in the U.S.

For foreigners who continue to seek a place at U.S. schools in the post-Sept. 11 environment, the most offered advice is to apply for visas early. Patt asks students to apply at least three months in advance or even earlier if possible. Owens advises that, in addition to applying early, students should ensure that they have all their documents completely filled out and should stay in regular contact with their universities and the State Department. "It's all the little things that matter when going through this process," he says.

According to Brzezinski, most students understand why the changes and delays are happening and are not discouraged from applying to U.S. institutions. Johnson is not sure. "We do have competitors--England, Australia, Canada--and those countries don't do this to people," he says. "We don't have the data yet to see trends, but in the end, we'll never know how many don't apply because it's not worth the hassle."

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