International students at Ohio State may soon feel the heat from the Immigration and Naturalization Service to register in accordance with the service’s specific guidelines.
The INS has implemented a program known as the National Entry-Exit Registration System to track non-immigrants in the United States who meet certain criteria.
The NEERS program was put into place in September by Attorney General John Ashcroft.
“The program covers certain countries and is divided into four stages,” said Mariam El-Shamaa, the international student coordinator at the Office of International Education.
To be required to register, the student must be a male, 16 years or older and a national or citizen of one of the specified countries that are required to register. Each stage also includes dates of entry and dates of exit from the United States that the student must follow.
The first two stages of registrations, involving citizens or nationals of numerous Middle Eastern and South Asian countries, including Afghanistan, have been extended until today. The third stage of registration involves citizens or nationals from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and will continue until Feb. 21. A fourth wave of registrations for those from Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Kuwait will take place from Feb. 24 to March 28.
“This program gives the government a better way to track who is in the country,” said John Greisberger, director of the OIE. “The INS used to keep all records on paper, and some have been lost. This is a way for the INS to start over on record-keeping.”
Greisberger said the job of the OIE is to make international students aware of this program and inform them of when to register.
International students who are required to register must go to the INS office.
“Most students are going to the Columbus INS office to register,” El-Shamaa said.
During registration, they are asked to show paperwork including identification papers, and fingerprints and a photo are taken.
An interview with the student follows, with questions involving basic identification, the purpose of the student’s visit to the United States, where the student is staying while in the United States, passport numbers, what school the student is enrolled at and more.
The process can sometimes be long and tiresome for international students.
“I got very frustrated by the process,” said Naveed Khokhar, a senior in management and information systems. “It reminds me of older times in history. I felt like I was one step away from being in a concentration camp.”
OSU does not enforce any penalties upon students who do not register when they are supposed to. All penalties for not registering are administered by the INS.
“The job of the Office of International Education is to make international students aware of this program and inform them of when to register,” Greisberger said. “The INS will ask why a student didn’t register. If there is a credible reason as to why they didn’t, then the INS will probably do the registration right then.”
Any consequences for not registering will be the responsibility of the INS.
“If a person willfully refused to register, it could lead to deportation,” El-Shamaa said.
Some non-immigrants have been detained in Colorado and California, Greisberger said, but in some cases they are detained because of errors in paperwork.
“There are so many visitors here on so many visas that if any of them are violated, the INS can detain them,” Greisberger said.
Many international students will have to comply with the registrations in order to stay here to study.
“It’s unfair to international students to have to go through this,” Khokhar said. “If these people who are supposed to register are really terrorists, does the INS actually expect them to register?”
