|
« AAUP Homepage
|
Visa Problems Persist
By Wendi Maloney
Even though the process required to obtain a U.S. visa has improved recently, travel to the United States remains unnecessarily challenging, according to a joint statement issued in January by five organizations with diverse interests: the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange; the Coalition for Employment Through Exports; the Heritage Foundation; NAFSA: Association of International Educators; and the National Foreign Trade Council.
A year earlier, U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff issued what they called a joint vision for improving border and travel security while ensuring that the United States remains a hospitable place for foreign visitors. Security measures introduced following the attacks of September 11, 2001, led to widespread visa delays and denials and the introduction by the government of various reforms to improve the post–September 11 visa process. The Rice-Chertoff program included steps such as extending the length of student visas and asking representatives from business, academia, and tourism to advise the government about best practices for admitting foreign visitors.
Despite these initiatives, significant barriers remain to the flow of foreign visitors to the United States, according to the statement’s authors. “Foreign scholars, particularly scientists, continue to feel they have to go through hoops they shouldn’t have to go through,” Victor Johnson of NAFSA told the Chronicle of Higher Education in January. Foreign scholars “who are well known and have traveled to the United States many times and whose work is open and transparent” find these difficulties particularly frustrating, he added. James Carafano, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, told the Chronicle that the need for visa reform is a “bipartisan issue. . . . Just keeping people out is not effective security.”
The joint statement calls on Congress and the executive branch to take several actions, including articulating a clear, operational visa policy that fully realizes the Rice-Chertoff plan and improving efficiency, transparency, and reliability in the visa process.
In the years since September 11, 2001, the AAUP has protested the exclusion of numerous foreign scholars, including, most recently, Adam Habib, a citizen of South Africa. He was denied entry into the country upon his arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport last October. He had been scheduled to meet with officers of the Social Science Research Council, Columbia University, the National Institutes of Health, and the World Bank. Habib had been allowed entry into the United States nearly two dozen times since obtaining his PhD in political science from the City University of New York, including some half-dozen visits since September 2001. In January 2007, the government revoked the visas of Habib’s wife and children, which the AAUP protested in a letter to the secretary of state. The government has given no reason for declining to permit Habib or his family to enter the country.
Habib’s case resembles that of the other academics, including Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan, whose exclusion the AAUP has protested. (See “Motion for Summary Judgment Filed in Ramadan Case” on page 15.) In none of these cases has the government questioned the reasons given by the foreign scholars for visiting the United States as being false or even suspect. “The administration, instead of instilling confidence that it knows what it is doing to stop foreign visitors from harming us, invites cynicism when it bars scholars who wish to enter this country for legitimate academic reasons,” says Jonathan Knight, director of the AAUP’s academic freedom program. “With these decisions, it hampers our ability to learn from those whose experiences and knowledge can enrich our understanding of vital issues.”
|