IT'S A KNOWN fact that students from all over the world come to this country to pursue higher education. In numerous other nations, the opportunity to learn and develop a career is severely hampered by constant turmoil or even a lack of qualified institutions. For thousands of foreign students, the United States proves to be a refuge of freedom and enlightenment.
In response to the recently disclosed information that three of the possible hijackers of Sept. 11 may have entered America on student visas, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.) this week called for stricter policies in monitoring incoming foreigners. While the tragic incidents indicate a slip-shod system of regulating immigration, Feinstein's reactionary demands to put in place a six-month moratorium on student visas go entirely too far in a misguided attempt to secure the nation from further attacks.
What the senator neglects to see is that now is the wrong time to shut out foreigners from the United States. As we all attempt to forge an understanding between Americans and citizens of the world, cutting off the flow of those who wish to come here to learn only damages the efforts to curtail future altercations. The only way to prevent similar incidents from occurring again is to allow open access between foreigners and Americans.
The fact that Feinstein focuses on students, of all people, is unacceptable. Better than any diplomat or foreign dignitary, students best represent their respective populations to their home nations and America, because of the daily interactions that naturally occur on college campuses. Without that informed bridge to connect countries' differing ideals, no hope exists for groups to respect and understand each other. By halting the arrival of new and eager students, Muslims around the world, for example, will continue to believe Americans are at war with all followers of Islam. If they aren't able to become educated, no one will be able to come forward to defend America.
Ours is the generation that will have to deal with the fallout and future repercussions of any war or global conflict. By reducing communication among young people everywhere, Feinstein's proposal also would diminish the common connection created among those who experience the same trying times. For example, our grandparents all united in fighting World War II. Our parents lived through the turmoil of the Vietnam War. Both of these great generations grew to relate to one another in resisting further conflicts and battling the repression of freedom.
College students today must be given the opportunity to form that same type of togetherness generations before we did. People already have begun to come together in several visible ways through such activities as peace and fundraising rallies. In the thousands of blood drives held around the country, the awareness of nationality became insignificant. During frank discussions of the reality of hate in the world, students struggled to understand why so many problems arise between people who in reality have so much in common. The moratorium denies both foreign and American students from experiencing that togetherness that is needed in the wake of the tragedy.
Proponents of the moratorium emphasize that the bill would not in any manner affect those international students already studying here. They miss the mark entirely. Everyone knows that people like to associate with others who come from similar backgrounds. One only has to look at the wide array of groups on Grounds that cater to various nationalities. Without a constant influx of students from other countries, current students will lack peers with whom to relate.
The citizens of other nations too would soon feel the impact of a moratorium on sending students to America. Doctors, engineers and teachers may never be trained to serve in some of the places that need them most. A financial consequence would strike hard on both sides of tuition bills -- schools could lose important sources of income and students a way to make decent wages.
According to the International Studies Office, 1,500 students from 110 countries now study at the University. For a school removed from any major metropolitan area such as New York, Washington, D.C. or Los Angeles, the University draws a considerable number of foreign students. Should Feinstein's proposed legislation go through, this institution would lose a significant and integral part of its future community. Thomas Jefferson himself believed in the importance of a foreign presence in his Academical Village, and eliminating or even decreasing it entirely abandons the foundations upon which the University and many other schools in the nation were built.
(Becky Krystal is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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