Foreign students face strict unit requirements

Most students have enough to worry about when they enroll in
classes this week for winter quarter.

But international students have one more worry on their minds
““ the possibility of being thrown out of the country.

American students who do not enroll in the correct number of
credits are put on academic probation. International students in
the same situation face possible revocation of their student visas
and deportation.

If there is an instance where a student drops below the course
requirement or fails to maintain student status at UCLA, the
university transmits this information through a program known as
the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.

SEVIS, an Internet-based system that was implemented in late
January of the last academic year, allows the United States
government to keep track of international students in the
country.

“The purpose (of SEVIS) is to provide some control over
the admission of students into this country, to eliminate fraud and
to make sure that students continue to study. If they don’t,
they don’t qualify to remain in the country with a student
visa,” said Sharon Rummery, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and
Immigration Services. CIS is a branch of the Department of Homeland
Security.

Universities must report on their international students via
SEVIS, including a students’ enrollment status.

Work started on SEVIS in 1995 after the first attack on the
World Trade Center, but SEVIS was not created until after the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with the signing of the
USA-PATRIOT Act.

“I think (Sept. 11) certainly pointed to the fact that the
government needed this information, though we had been working for
a number of years to do it at this point,” said Lauren Mack,
a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The new system has had moderate success. Out of 832,182
international and exchange students reported by Sept. 24, 2003,
less than 100 had problems meeting requirements, Mack said.

Some foreign students find ways to work within the visa program.
Jinsong Yang, a third-year computer science graduate student, has
been attending or working at UCLA for almost six years.

Yang, who is from China, first attained a master’s degree
in architecture, then worked at UCLA until he started working
toward a computer science master’s degree. He said he plans
to continue to use his visa to remain in the country until he finds
a job in the United States so he will not be sent back to
China.

“I have to either be a student or be employed by a company
or I am not legal to stay in the country on my visa,” Yang
said.

Regardless of their status, international students still enroll
in the same manner as U.S. students, and must go through the same
process of finding classes to fill their quota for the quarter.

Undergraduate students must maintain a schedule of at least 12
units and graduate students must have at least eight units.
Students are encouraged not to dip below these minimum
requirements, but if they do, they must be authorized by the Office
of International Students and Scholars.

“Generally we listen and work with the international
students,” said Lawrence Gower, the director of OISS, of
problems international students may face with enrollment. “We
consult with other counselors, and with most cases, students are
authorized.”

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