Fee to help fund SEVIS

Newly proposed regulations by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have international students wondering when enough will be enough.\nThe draft regulations, scheduled to be released this week, require a one-time $100 fee for all international students, according to the Chronicle for Higher Education. The fee will cover the costs of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, the database used by the Homeland Security Department to track international students. It also will allow for system maintenance and more staff members to work with colleges and universities.\nAccording to www.sevis.net, every college and university in the United States is required to comply with the new rules. Once the final regulations are announced, colleges and universities will have 30 days to suggest changes. The final regulations will be released sometime this spring or next fall.\nThe new fee could prove to be a further barrier for international students seeking to come to the country. \nInternational students currently pay a $100 visa-processing fee and a visa-issuance fee determined by their home country, in addition to steep tuition fees. \nMany international students at IU say they are wondering when the cost of pursuing a higher education in the United States will stop increasing.\nSophomore Soyul Yang said he is opposed to such fees because they impose unneeded difficulties for international students. He cited the experiences of several friends back home who failed to obtain visas to come to the country to study.\n"I don't know why they are trying to make it harder for us, because it is already tough enough," Yang said. \nThe fees also could have a negative effect on where international students choose to study.\nJunior Jin-Suk Kong said if fees keep rising and visas become even harder to obtain, international students will give more consideration to attending college in places like Canada and New Zealand. \n"If they keep raising (fees) and making it harder to get a visa, no one is going to want to come here and study," he said.\nBut this fee isn't the only burden caused by SEVIS. International students are required to take full course loads or risk being deported.\nAssociate Dean of International Programs Christopher Viers said SEVIS could also have possible long-term ramifications, such as the ability to recruit and retain international students because of the restrictions and the overall attitude of these policies.\n"It's not really a welcoming, friendly environment," Viers said in a previous IDS article. "Students don't like 'Mother SEVIS' watching their every move."\nCurrently, more than 200,000 international students, like Yang and Kong, enter the United States to study each year.\nAfter the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, SEVIS was created to combat fraud and make certain that international students live up to the terms of their visas. The program also seeks to keep terrorists from entering the country. Both Yang and Kong say finances are the biggest prevention of terrorist activity by international students in the United States.\n"Most international students who come here pay the full tuition, and they are the high class people of their country," Yang said. "Those who have the potential to be a terrorist, they are already eliminated because they are pretty much the lower class of third world countries."\nKong said universities shouldn't worry about terrorist activities on campus.\n"From my perspective, the reason why they are trying to make it tougher is because of terrorists," Kong said. "But the programs they have now are already eliminating the type of people like that. The average international student who is willing to come to the U.S. to study is having a hard time."\n-- Contact staff writer Matt Lahr at mjlahr@indiana.edu.