U.S. govt rethinks student visas

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Alarmed by the slump in the number of visa applications, especially for education, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Friday that it had streamlined its visa application procedures.

Special assistant to the assistant secretary for consular affairs at the U.S. Department of State, Susan Jacobs, said that the streamlining was aimed at providing effective and efficient service for those who planned to attend American universities.

"For a student, what you have to do is show up on any day, for example you call on Monday and come up the next day for interview," Jacobs told a press briefing at the U.S. Embassy here.

She said that the procedures had been streamlined without jeopardizing the country's homeland security.

However, regular travelers would still have to deal with lengthy visa applications. "It takes longer if you are going on a regular visits. There are so many people that are applying for visas and there aren't enough council officers to do them all at once, so there is a waiting list ... It will take about two months now to get your appointment," she said, adding that the procedures included the electronic copying of applicant's fingerprints.

Following the 9/11 terrorist attack, the U.S. government enacted extraordinary security measures within its boundaries, putting a large number of people on its terrorist watchlists.

In September, Yusuf Islam, the British pop musician formerly known as Cat Stevens, was denied entry to the U.S. after he was suspected of being a financial supporter of groups believed to be linked to terrorism.

The stepped-up security measures have also taken their toll, causing a steady decline in the number of students who wished to study at U.S. universities, especially from Asia.

U.S. national statistics show that the number of foreign scholars seeking to study in the United States, largely from Asia, has declined significantly over the past two years because they are being deterred by uncertainty over visas.

The Council of Graduate Studies, a Washington-based global group engaged in graduate education, research scholarship, and the preparation of candidates for advanced degrees, says 90 percent of U.S. schools surveyed experienced a decrease in graduate school applications from international students this year.

In a letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, Harvard President Lawrence Summers warned that if visa processes remained complicated and mired in delay, the United States risked losing some of its most talented scientists.

Summers warned that such complicated procedures jeopardized the country's position at the forefront of technological innovation.

Jacobs said that the application rate for students from Indonesia was down very substantially from 2000 until now.

She said that people outside the U.S. had wrongly perceived the stepped-up security measures to mean that the U.S. was isolating itself from the rest of the world.

"America is a very welcoming country and encourages businessman, and especially students, to come and attend our universities and see what America is all about," she said.