Feds Keeping Tabs on Foreign Students

Emma C. Mosby

Emma C. Mosby calls herself a "mother figure" to foreign students.

Uncle Sam is watching foreign students, and with the help of university administrators, he’s taking a pretty close look.

The government began monitoring visiting students more closely after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In the following days, it was revealed that one of the hijackers in the World Trade Center attacks, Egyptian Mohammed Atta, was in the United States on a student visa.

The U.S. government introduced the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System in January to monitor the activities of foreign students during their stay in the country.

North Carolina Central University is one of 3,900 U.S. colleges and universities that report to this database. Under the system, schools will work closely with immigration officials to make sure that foreign students remain in school, and that they are not national security risks.

“There have been cases where foreign students with student visas do enroll and drop out of school and never come back,” said Emma C. Mosby of the university’s Student Learning/Counseling Center. “And some don’t even enroll at all.”

Participating schools supply federal immigration offices with names, addresses, majors and information on disciplinary action taken against visiting students, as well as a record of any classes they drop.

Failure by a foreign student to enroll and take a full load of classes may result in the student being deported.

Mosby said that her work not only helps the national security, but benefits the foreign students.

“I will be the mother figure to the foreign students,” said Mosby. “I will know what they will be doing. If I want to see any one of them, I should know where to find them. I just have to know.”

Mosby said that her monitoring is not an invasion of privacy. She said she is working very hard to compile information on students and hopes to furnish immigration officials with all the required information by the end of April.

Mosby said that she is going to have meetings with foreign students soon to clarify what the system calls for. She said that her door is open to all foreign students who want information on the system.

Mosby has appealed to foreign students not to visit their home countries before talking with her, because they face the risk of being denied re-entry.

Junior physics major Ibrahim Cisse of Niger, the president of North Carolina Central’s International Students Organization, said he understands why the U.S. government is tracking foreign students. And, besides, there’s nothing he can do about it.

“I am not comfortable with a situation where I am tracked all the time, but I understand that the U.S. government is fighting terrorism,” said Cisse. “I don’t vote in the American elections, so I feel that the American people are the ones who should have a say on what their government does. I value the American education.”

Lovemore Masakadza, a student at North Carolina Central University, writes for The Campus Echo.