Replies

The Immigration and Naturalization Service was ordered in 1996 to develop a database program by Dec. 20, 2003, to keep track of the approximately 600,000 foreign students in the United States.

Dear Lord if this isn't an example of ineptitude I don't know what is. Give me the old fashioned Dbase or the more modern Access and I'd have this thing running, quickly efficiently, toute d'suite.

Hey....gubmint....we have COMPUTERS now! With form letters, automatic lookups, links, databases, WHY CAN'T THEY DO THIS?

I *am* a business consultant and have done this very sort of thing, including creating a database to track all AIDS cases for a hospital in Baltimore. It is *not* that damn difficult.

Sure it's a grander scale and you've got all those gubmint agencies with which to interact but give me some good people, put me in charge, in two months I have it done, boom.

I'd have that puppy linking up to whatever bureaucracy issues visas. I'd have a daily report of expired visas with modem links to the universities which are alleged to be attending, boom, click on the link, CALL THEM UP! And if the answer ain't satisfactory, boom, form letter pops out. I'd track the responses and within a programmed period of time, boom, pull the Visas. Send a form letter to the FBI, go out and round them up.

No, I am *not* oversimplifying. Compared to the money and power of the United States government, my abridged plan above is analogous.

I'm serious when I say over and over again, the gubmint CANNOT handle this.

Bump for Pat's post above. I've been in that world as well, he's right, it just isn't that hard. Bureucratic ineptitude, lack of accountability, and PC hiring practices conspire to prevent the government from taking the actions required for us to prevail.

I know very little about computers but what you say HAS to be right. What can they have been doing for 5 years? These people come over here with student visas and never attend the school and EVERYONE KNEW IT. There was no will to deal with it and I don't trust they won't backslide even now. I found President Bush's 2 remarks about "women of cover" last night very disturbing.