Hearing of the Research and Science Education Subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee - Visas for Foreign Scholars and Students
Interview
Hearing of the Research and Science Education Subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee - Visas for Foreign Scholars and Students
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REP VERNON J. EHLERS (R-MI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for being delayed on my way over here.
Really, this is a very important issue and I was struck -- on Sunday after church, I was tackled by several of our church members precisely on this issue. But they were not talking about having scientists come here. But in one case it was musicians, in another case it was theologians. And the same principles apply. And so we should all recognize that.
The international students and scholars are an important part of our science and technology economy and diplomacy. Whether U.S. scientists and engineers are traveling abroad, or foreign scientists and engineers are coming here, the facilitation of global scientific exchange is necessary to overcome many of our global technology problems.
In this flat world, we must indeed figure out a way to keep our country safe, but open it to those with no ill intent. Only a small fraction of international students and scholars receive the opportunity to study or teach in the United States.
The lucky ones often leave behind spouses and children to pursue multi-year programs and appointments. In recent years, some students have avoided retuning home for long periods of time because they fear possible delays and a maze of red tape associated with getting back into the U.S.
Consequently, many of these students experience personal hardship and sacrifice to follow their dream of studying at one of our institutions.
I think we are all aware of the impacts this can have on universities and scientific progress. But the human factor of this issue is often overlooked.
I know many of our witnesses has been working on a solution to this problem. In the post 9/11 world, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State have worked diligently to ensure that students who pose no security risk to the U.S. can still attend our higher educational institutions.
None the less, the last six years have been challenging for both students, scholars, and the government, to find a critical balance of interest.
It is encouraging to see the numbers indicating that international student interest and attendance at U.S. universities has rebounded.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about the progress and challenges still facing our visa system.
Just finally add two more personal notes. The first, when I was a student at Berkeley, we were -- as scientists throughout the country were eager to get Russian scientists into our nation, because they were very capable people, had much to contribute to our learning; and the soviet government wouldn't let them go. And we thought it was horrible.
Now it's reversed. Now the union no longer exists. Russia allows their scientists to come here. We don't let them get in. And it's just absolutely ridiculous our country has gone 180 degrees on this.
I also have personal interest in this. My son, who is a scientist, married a scientist from Europe, and they are having incredible problems with the United States in terms of her coming here, her staying here, her going back to Germany for the summer, as they are doing, and whether or not she can get back in. It's just horrendous, the hoops that anyone has to jump through.
If we really want to attract scientists from other countries, we have to deal with these problems, and deal with them properly.
Thank you.
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REP. EHLERS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's kind of amusing but also sad. Some years ago, I spent a year in a research program in Germany and since I was going to be there more than a year, I had to go down to the Auslaenderamt, which is the Foreign Office, and register and so forth. And I sat there, and I waited in line for about two hours to get a form to fill out. Then after that I had to go back to the line to hand in the form and so I spent four hours. When I got back to the institute where I was --my German colleagues were absolutely horrified that I had been subjected to this, said, "Why didn't you tell them you're a professor." "That's because, well, in America it doesn't make any difference." And they said, "Well, in Germany, it does." But anyway, after going through that very, very bureaucratic process, incredibly bureaucratic, it had occurred to me to thank goodness for the good old USA, where we don't have this sort of thing.
And now we find that that was reversed, we've gotten as bad. It's now the worst of many other countries. And I've been told that they're dealing with this issue and that's why I think the idea was proposed that we have a get-together informally. It's a two-legged monster, and it's the State, it's this Department of Homeland Security and Citizenship and Immigration Services, CIS. I do want to say, Mr. Edson, you're probably the least bad --and in a situation --
(Laughing)
REP. EHLERS: Well that's intended as a compliment. The others don't read my work and you do.
One concern I have, and let me --and I'm just a member of foreign embassies, I've talked to consular officials. They have a horrible task to try to decide who should go and who should not. But I think there are some problems there. A case that we're working on now here, this was a religious music conference in my home city, and it had cohesive denomination, which is in my city, and calling members "foreigners" were not allowed, in fact one case. Some 15 of them who were active in the music service of their particular churches took a train, considerable distance from here, to the consul offices and watched the consul official not even open their applications or their portfolios, just write down or ink stamp, "no/no/no/no/no" on all of them, send them on their way, and never --they never got a chance to speak there, portfolio was not opened. And that's unacceptable behavior.
The --one thing I'll tell you about it, and over the years is the impossible appeal process people of people who are denied. Frequently in a situation when people obviously call us and say can you help, and I always tell them, well, there's some things we can do, some we can't. But the consular official --I would think that a letter from a letter from a member of Congress who personally knows the people organizing the conference and has asked them about the people coming and was there any possibility that there could be in the program. And we sent a letter to the consular official, and it was totally ignored.
And the reviewer --there is no reviewer. It's the same official who denied it is the one who reviewed it. There's something wrong with that process. There has to be a reasonable appeal process, and I don't mean just for members of Congress, but I mean for anyone who wants to appeal and go to someone else and I really think you have to reexamine that purpose. Your purpose is not to keep people out. Your purpose is to welcome good people and keep the bad people out. And, again, too --far too many good people are prevented from coming here for perfectly legitimate reasons, whether academic or otherwise. So I urge you to really reexamine that carefully.
And maybe you need more consular officials, I know they're overworked. I talked to one once, and when I asked, could you specifically say if they were jobless, and she said, "I say "No" all day long," and she gets to work on a line --there's a line stretching about a block long, people trying to get in this year, and she has to process all those people all day long. And it's very difficult. You may need some more people on that as well.
The one thing I do --and I commend the State Department on, by the way, is the way you handled the passport crisis last year, which has nothing to do with this, but we had one person in our office working full-time, constantly, every day, with the people who came to us because they were waiting for their passports, they had paid for their cruise et cetera, and your department did yeomen's work in trying to accommodate people. I can remember only a couple who could not take the trip, because it didn't arrive in time.
Many of them had heart attacks waiting for it, because it usually arrives two days ahead of time. But you did yeomen work in that and something that was imposed on you from the outside by the Congress, and just took your time to catch up with it. So I do appreciate what the state department did on that.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I will pass.
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