Evaluation of Foreign Student Program
SNIP:The following evaluation of the foreign student program concludes that:
• The INS has little control over the number and type of students being admitted;
• The program is littered with corruption and fraud;
• American taxpayers subsidize a sizable part of the tuition of foreign students;
• The benefits from the program are greatly exaggerated, and the program may well generate a net economic loss for the country;
• The program is best viewed as yet another redistribution program, shifting wealth away from native workers and taxpayers and redistributing it to universities and
foreigners. Many foreign leaders, ranging from Pakistan’s former President Benazir Bhutto to Mexico’s Carlos Salinas de Gortari, from Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak to Philippines’ Corazon Aquino, obtained part of their education in the United States. One can easily argue that such training may be one of America’s highest valued exports. By giving future foreign leaders first-hand exposure to American democratic values and showing them how the system works, we are presumably building a safer and more prosperous world.
Another foreign student, Hani Hasan Hanjour, a 26-year-old Saudi national, got a student visa to study English at ELS Language Centers in Oakland, California, a Berlitz-owned school that leases space at a local college. Hanjour did not attend a single English class. Instead, he became one of the terrorists in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on September 11. And two other terrorists — including Mohammed Atta, the presumed ringleader — were waiting for the official approval of their student visas to attend flight school, an approval that the Immigration and Naturalization Service dutifully mailed out six months after the attacks. Understandably, many Americans demanded to know just how many foreign students were present in the country, and how many of those students originated in the countries identified as "terrorist sponsors" by the State Department.
The INS, however, had not learned the lesson from the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979, when President Carter considered the possibility of retaliating by expelling all the Iranian students then enrolled in American colleges and universities. He too wished to know how many such students would be affected. The INS could not provide that number during the entire 444 days of the crisis. And the INS still has no way of determining how many foreign students are present in the United States.
Must be reiterated! Thanks, MamaDearest.