Visa Pinch Felt in Granite State, UNH Official Tells Senate
WASHINGTON – Having just completed his master’s degree in economics, a University of New Hampshire student returned home to Turkey last spring to visit his family. With a student visa valid through the end of this year, he had every intention of returning to the United States this fall to begin work on his Ph.D.
He wasn’t allowed to. The graduate shares a name with a known criminal, and his application to enter the United States triggered an FBI investigation. His visa and doctorate are on hold, and UNH officials are withholding his name to protect his privacy.
Cases like that illustrate how a new visa screening system intended to prevent terrorists from entering the United States could bar smart foreign students and scholars from American campuses and imperil the $12 billion a year that they bring to the United States, according to John Aber, vice president for research and public service at UNH.
Aber told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee Thursday that the more difficult the United States makes it for international students and scholars to come to America, the more likely they are to take their money and expertise elsewhere.
“A number of our most productive faculty spend a considerable amount of their working life abroad,” Aber told the Subcommittee on International Relations and Terrorism, which is investigating implementation of new checks used to sift through visa applicants and root out terrorists. Other witnesses said the new procedures, adopted by Congress last year, also are hurting tourism.
“The optimum management of our research enterprise requires free and open accessáto the pool of aspiring students and scholars who hold citizenship in other countries,” Aber said. He added that UNH typically processes about 800 international applications a year.
While he said UNH has not seen a noticeable increase in the number of students whose visa applications have been rejected under the new laws, Aber said the added time and hassle have discouraged some students from applying in the first place. Universities in Canada and Australia are taking advantage of the situation to actively promote hassle-free visa applications, he said.
Foreign applications to most of UNH’s degree programs have not declined, but applications to the shorter English language programs have dropped by about 20 percent, Aber said. Many foreign students apply to the English programs before entering degree programs, and Aber predicted the drop eventually would resonate throughout the university.
Foreign-born students earn 33 percent of Ph.D.s in science and engineering and 40 percent of those in computer science in the United States each year, Aber said.
Visa screeners from the State Department, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security also consider an applicant’s country of origin and any intention to work with sensitive technology. Those restrictions are particularly problematic for UNH, which conducts a significant amount of research in the space sciences, Aber said.
“Right now it’s a guessing game when we cannot guarantee anybody’s quick return to the U.S.,” said Leila Paje-Manelo, director of the Office of International Students and Scholars at UNH.
Several senators cautioned witnesses from the federal agencies charged with implementing the new rules that they must maintain a delicate balance between ensuring security and smothering the already struggling economy.
“The visa and border-crossing process must be, and must be seen to be, convenient,” Sen. John Sununu, R-NH, the subcommittee’s chairman, said in a statement. “If not, potential visitors – businessmen and women, tourists, students, scholars and scientists – will go elsewhere at great cost to our economy, our lead in science and technology and foreign understanding of our country.”
Sen. Richard Lugar, D-Ind., added, “[The economy] may be more secure, but it may be dead by the time we’re finished.”
