13
Jan

Obama SOU Ignored Critical Flaws in Legal Immigration Visa Policies

Published on January 13th, 2016

By Joe Guzzardi
January 13, 2016
 
President Obama’s broad, rambling State of the Union address touched on a variety of subjects including terrorism, trade, and immigration. At one point during his speech, Obama lauded working immigrants and also referenced a DREAMer whom he portrayed as staying up late to finish her science project.
 
In the weeks leading up to Obama’s speech, Congress has been embroiled in a debate about how to track non-immigrants who overstayed their visas, including some who came to America as students before the president granted them deferred action in 2012.This DACA program gave DREAMers temporary legal status. Asking how to more efficiently track visa overstays is the wrong question. The congressional inquiry should probe why so many visas are issued since they rarely serve the national interest. More important, under the current system overstays are difficult to locate and detain because of the number of recipients is so high. Once a visa holder overstays, the Department of Homeland Security reclassifies him as an alien.
 
The student or F visa has no annual cap and is, along with tourist, business, and visa waivers, the most common way for foreign nationals to enter the United States. The F visa is issued for “duration of status,” in other words valid for that period of time when the holder is enrolled in an authorized educational institution, and actively attends classes.
 
According to a DHS employee who has worked in immigration enforcement since the Clinton presidency, here’s the problem. When someone comes to the United States, their visa can be valid for several years or for a single day. The moment they appear at a port of entry, they’re issued an I-94 permit which will designate the authorized length of stay depending on the visa they present. When an F-1 student visa is submitted, the duration of status becomes tricky because without a firm departure date, DHS can’t determine if or when a student slips out of status. Without millions more in resources or an operative entry-exit system, DHS can’t locate students who may have dropped out or switched to part-time status.
 
The DHS agent concluded that the F visa is “a huge mess” not just because it’s so liberally granted but also because it’s “way, way, way too easy to become an authorized school for international students.” Consequently, the U.S. has approved schools in strip malls with few administrative employees that nevertheless accept hundreds of students annually. Not every student visa holder is headed to an Ivy League school; some attend cosmetics classes or career academies. The lax visa standards benefit universities, legitimate and otherwise, that have developed a $21 billion industry to serve international students.
 
Obama’s DREAMer advocacy is consistent with his pro-immigration agenda, but it doesn’t reflect reality or acknowledge the F visa’s flaws. The easily obtained visa has led to a 10 percent increase to 975,000 students enrolled during academic year 2014-2015. More students means a greater challenge to track them, a responsibility that the federal government and the schools share, but have jointly ignored. ABC News reported that in 2014 alone, 6,000 foreign nationals who came on student visas disappeared within the U.S.
 
A smaller, stricter international student program that admits fewer would be more manageable, eliminate the worry of how to find and deport the thousands who overstay but still allow worthy overseas students an opportunity to pursue higher education in America.
 

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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow. Contact him at [email protected]

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