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    Pluses, Minuses Seen in New INS Reporting System

    By VIC COX

    New Federal Immigration and Naturalization Service rules now require colleges and universities across the nation to gather and periodically transmit to the INS, via the Internet, information on students and scholars from other countries.
    This means that departments will need to learn a few new procedures, according to Mary Jacob, director of the UCSB Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS). Her office will be offering workshops this month on these procedures (see <www.oiss.ucsb.edu/Newsletters/SEVISWkshopSch.htm>).
    Called SEVIS (Student Exchange Visitor Information Service), the organized personal data will help the INS keep better track of nonimmigrant scholars and students. Universities will also employ the data to generate basic documents for new and renewed F and J visa applications. UCSB has found ways to use the SEVIS requirements to expand services to its international community, according to Jacob.
    Working closely with the Student Information Systems and Technology Office, OISS created a Web site for SEVIS information. "Nothing is going directly to INS," said Jacob. "All the information goes through our staff."
    This allows trained OISS staff to check the accuracy of information before it is passed on to the INS, and the system will provide alerts to scholars and students when their visas or passports are about to expire. "We never had that ability before," said Jacob, "so in some ways SEVIS will help us serve our students and scholars better."
    Most of the information requested by SEVIS either was already collected on paper by the INS or the agency had the right to get it from universities under laws passed before the Patriot Act of 2001, she noted. However, there are now added items, such as requiring departments to report when scholars first check in and when they physically leave the programs.
    "That's a new requirement," said Jacob. So, too, is the generation of an individual visa form by OISS for each of the scholar's dependents. "Before, all of the scholar's family could travel on his visa document," she added.
    Starting on Feb. 24, workshops on SEVIS have been scheduled for J visa scholars, F and J visa students, graduate program advisers, and the administrative staff who process J scholar requests for the departments.


    Mary Jacob, director of the Office of International Students and Scholars, hopes Internet-based INS reporting will aid students and scholars.