Bordering on insanity

Immigration is perhaps the United States’ greatest strength, and has been an important part of our history. Immigration has also been an especially significant asset to our university system. Large numbers of foreign professors and students bring both academic, cultural and economic assets to our country, contributing billions of dollars every year to the U.S.\nWhile America has one of the world’s most multicultural university systems, the number of foreign students studying in America is dropping at an alarming rate. Why is this happening?\nMany international students state that the American government has made it increasingly difficult for international students and teachers to get student visas. This has made many of these incredibly talented students and professors choose to get their degrees from schools in places such as Australia, Britain, Canada and Europe. Many of these places do not have the lengthy and complicated visa requirements that the U.S. has. As a result, we are losing much of our potential international talent.\nInternational academics have been facing an increasing number of obstacles to entering our country. Some of them, for no apparent reason, are not allowed to enter the United States at all. One of the most famous examples is Nalini Ghuman, a Welsh musicologist who was taken away after entering the San Francisco Airport and was barred from entering the country again, even after having lived in California for more than 10 years. Ghuman has never been told why she was not allowed back into the country and has been waiting for more than a year to begin her job as a music professor in California.\nGhuman is not alone. There are many other academics in similar situations, such as Tariq Ramadan, who was hired by Notre Dame as a professor but was not allowed to enter the U.S. Sixty-one Cuban scholars have also not been allowed entrance to the country to attend a Latin Studies Association International Congress. \nMany believe that the government is denying visas for people because of their political views and not the risk they pose to national security.\nSome organizations are fighting for the system to be changed, the American Civil Liberties Union being among the largest and most vocal. Melissa Goodman, a staff attorney for the ACLU’s National Security Project, said that “the Bush Administration is stifling debate by preventing U.S. audiences from engaging prominent scholars face-to-face.” Whether or not the Bush Administration is using political opinions as a basis for denying visas is up for debate, but the stories above sure do give many would-be international students and professors the impression that it is. \nThe job of securing America’s borders is not easy, and the system for doing so is incredibly complex and requires handling hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year. But if America wishes to remain competitive in the global academic and economic marketplace, it must improve the system for checking immigrants coming to the U.S. to study and teach. Without these talented people, we not only risk losing a very important multi-ethnic atmosphere, but also America’s place as one of the best university systems in the world.