US Immigration bureau prepares to help arriving foreign students; New registration requirements could cause problems

The U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is opening an around-the-clock command center August 1 to help ease the entry of foreign students arriving in the United States for a new academic term.

A new data-sharing system is being implemented, requiring educational institutions to electronically provide information to ICE about the students they have accepted and enrolled in the new semester. Called the Student Exchange Visitor and Information System (SEVIS), it will be the primary data source immigration officers will rely upon at ports of entry to determine whether a foreign student is eligible to enter the country.

ICE reported in a July 29 press release that more than 5,900 educational institutions have gone online with SEVIS, but more than 600 U.S. schools have not done so. There is concern in the academic community that students entering non-compliant schools could encounter difficulty entering the country.

ICE has opened the command center to help deal with those problems. The agency has sent guidance to U.S. ports of entry providing specific instruction on how to deal with a variety of situations that could arise with foreign students. ICE will also be prepared to provide information technology assistance to educational institutions having technical problems with the complex data-sharing system.