NEWS FEATURE: Anti-Terror Policies Create Obstacle for Muslim Students

c. 2004 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ This is the first summer in four years M’hamed, a Moroccan graduate student, will not be going home to visit. M’hamed’s student visa has expired, and he is afraid that if he leaves the country, he will not be able to return to Virginia, where his wife still […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ This is the first summer in four years M’hamed, a Moroccan graduate student, will not be going home to visit.

M’hamed’s student visa has expired, and he is afraid that if he leaves the country, he will not be able to return to Virginia, where his wife still has a year left in her master’s program. He has already completed a master’s degree in information management and will be finishing a master’s in business administration this summer. Because of his visa status he preferred his last name not be used.


“It’s much harder to renew your visa now,” he said of the post-Sept. 11 era. “My brother-in-law had to renew his visa and missed half of the semester because the embassy kept his passport. What used to take two days is taking three months or more.”

Complaints of discrimination, difficulties obtaining visas and other bureaucratic hassles associated with certain post-Sept. 11 policies are some of the reasons a growing number of students from Muslim countries are choosing not to study in the United States.

According to data from the International Institute of Education, a higher education exchange agency, 60 percent of predominately Muslim countries have seen a decrease in the number of students enrolling in U.S. universities since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Between 2002 and 2003, the number of students from majority Muslim countries dropped 6 percent _ to 77,000 from 82,000 students.

“No one wants to go to the United States anymore,” said Adil Ghafoor, a 19-year-old Pakistani sophomore and engineering major at Purdue University in Indiana. “The majority of my graduating class applied to Canada or the United Kingdom.

“The chances of getting a (U.S.) visa are slim now. We saw what happened to the seniors the year before us. They were flat out rejected.”

From 1993 through 2001, enrollment of students from Muslim countries increased by about 17 percent. The 6 percent decrease last year in enrollment was the largest single-year drop in the past 10 years.


Overall international student enrollment in the United States rose by less than 1 percent last year, with most of the 586,000 students coming from India, China and South Korea.

Chris Domes, vice president for enrollment and student services at Marymount University in Virginia, said about one-third of Marymount’s international students were from the Middle East.

Eighty Saudi Arabian students attended Marymount in 2001 and about 40 are currently enrolled, he said. Nationwide, enrollment of students from Saudi Arabia is down 25 percent.

“There’s probably more concern among Muslim students about how they might be treated,” he said. “It’s more a perception than a reality at Marymount. If they’re unsure how they might be received in the United States, some students might decide to go to another country to go to school.”

For those seeking countries with “friendlier” student visa policies, Canada is a North American alternative, according to Anne Stockdale of the Canadian Education Center Network, which markets Canadian universities to international students.

“We don’t have any numbers to provide on this trend, but we’re hearing anecdotally from Canadian contacts across the country,” Stockdale said. “We do perceive there is a shift from students from a certain part of the world. We’re also hearing that international students currently in the United States are considering moving. Canada is certainly one of the beneficiaries.”


A spokeswoman from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom reported a slight decrease in undergraduate students and an increase in graduate students from Middle Eastern countries for the 2002-2003 school year.

“Over the past five years the figures have been relatively stable,” she said. “Our goal remains to recruit the very brightest and best students, no matter what their background or country of origin.”

Last year, U.S. embassies determined that about 2 percent of nonimmigrant visa applications required a special security review in Washington.

It took three months for Murtaza Mandviwalla, a 20-year-old Pakistani student at Purdue University, to receive his visa after his application was sent to Washington for a security check.

“The interview officer … said I could only hope to get my visa in time for the fall semester and that he could not give a definite time frame,” Mandviwalla said in an e-mail about his visit to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.

“After that, I just waited without any news, checking regularly with FedEx to see if my passport had arrived. I had to defer my admission to spring semester still hoping that I would get the visa on time for spring.” He received the visa last October.


Since January, most travelers from around the world entering the United States have had their fingerprints scanned and their pictures taken.

Mohamed Nimer, research director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called policies that single out certain groups “ethno-religious revenge.”

“These policies are … based on stereotypes and labeling,” Nimer said. “This contributes nothing to the security of the United States. If anything, it exacerbates the problem because it heightens the atmosphere of suspicion and counter-suspicion.”

Since last summer, American universities admitting foreign students have had to comply with a new computerized and nationally centralized registration system called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.

The system tracks students’ addresses and course enrollment. If students don’t report a change of address within 10 days or fail to enroll in classes, their visa status is jeopardized.

“In the past, under the paper-based system, we would not really know if the student showed up for school,” said Bill Strassberger, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman.


Nimer said some Muslim students chose to study outside the United States because they feared losing time and money invested in an American degree if they were deported.

“American law is so detailed,” he said. “You’re not expecting a student who is supported by their family to have the means to hire a lawyer to read immigration law and tell every aspect and how (to) be in compliance all the time.”

The U.S. government should make it a priority to ensure the maximum number of students from Muslim countries study in the United States, according to Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“America’s interests are damaged whenever there’s a decrease in understanding of America,” Hooper said. “Student exchange is one of the most important ways to communicate culture and values. When (students) go back, they can refute any misinformation that may be harming America’s image.”

_ Lori Konish and Melissa Segars contributed to this article.

DEA/PH END MORGAN

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