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    Scholars, Students, Performers Dragged Into U.S. Visa Limbo

    By VIC COX

    In the wake of 9/11, new federal security clearance and visa requirements for people of various nationalities who seek to enter the United States have affected a number of campus programs and departments, ranging from the arts to the sciences.
    Arts & Lectures this month had to substitute Latin jazz artists in the Calle 54 concert when an 82-year-old, Cuban-born pianist could not get a security clearance for a visa to come to the United States from Sweden where he has been living since Castro came to power in 1959.
    In addition, the 17-city U.S. tour of Juan de Marco's Afro-Cuban All Stars has been postponed from this fall until next spring due to delays in securing FBI security clearances for the 13-piece band from Havana. "This new process is cumbersome, very frustrating, and expensive," said Celesta Billeci, A&L director. She said that her agency has even had to hire an immigration lawyer to expedite the pace of visas to performing artists from a number of nationalities.
    At the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, six invited scientists from Russia and India have been waiting for their entry visas for months, some since June, reported Deborah Storm, KITP management services officer. "I understand security concerns," she said, "but we are not getting any information on where these visas are in the process. It's very unsettling."
    The institute gathers together some of the best scientific minds on the planet to consider the nature of matter and the universe in a calm, unstressful atmosphere. Critical intellectual mass is very important to the KITP process, Storm explained. "When three or four key people are delayed or suddenly not coming [to engage others], it ripples throughout the creative process," she said.
    By mid-month, at least one scientist was talking about going home because of a colleague's absence.
    At the Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS), which helps with visa problems for the nearly 1,800 students and scholars from other nations on campus, Director Mary Jacob warned that "we're seeing just the tip of the iceberg." Six Chinese students failed to get visas in time for the fall quarter. The delays and uncertainties caused by the new security procedures, which OISS can do little to ameliorate, will be compounded, she feels, by federal plans to photograph and fingerprint international visitors who are deemed a national security concern.
    "There is a potential here for grave negative impacts on research," Jacob said. In addition, the net effect "of all these restrictive efforts runs counter to the basic philosophy of American higher education."