Chinese Students Fear Increase in Visa Woes

By Austin Ramzy

With the United States considering immigration restrictions in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, some Chinese students say they worry it will be harder for them to obtain student visas to attend American universities.

When UC Berkeley economics graduate student Ting Lu decided he wanted to go home to China this winter, he went to Mexico first. Lu, 27, didn't visit sunny beaches, but rather the border town of Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

The reason was his visa. He was afraid that the United States Embassy in his hometown of Beijing wouldn't renew his six-month student visa. So like other Chinese students, Lu went to Lopez. He said it's easier to see consular officials there, and he believes he has a better shot at getting permission to return to the country.

"If I don't have it renewed (in Mexico), then I have to renew it in China," Lu said. "It's possible that I can be declined. That means I can't continue to study here."

Yunjian Jiang, a Berkeley doctoral student in electrical engineering and computer science, went to Vancouver, Canada, earlier this year to renew his visa. "A lot of people do that. It's become a common practice," Jiang said. "You can either go to Mexico or Canada. If you apply in a third country other than China you have better chance."

Like Lu, Jiang was concerned about having his visa application rejected by U.S. officials in China.

U.S. officials say they must ensure that students from China will return home after their studies are finished. According to reports, U.S. officials in China rejected more than one out of every three applications for student visas during a month-long period last year, an increase from the same time the previous year. Meanwhile, the total number of visa applications increased.

Chinese students worry their chances might get worse after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast. One of the suspects, Hani Hanjour, is believed to have entered the United States on a student visa. He registered to attend classes last fall at ELS Language Centers' intensive English-language program at Oakland's Holy Names College.

Hanjour never showed, said Michael Palm, a school spokesman. Investigators believe Hanjour piloted American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon on Sept. 11.

In response, Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., proposed a six-month moratorium on student visas while the U.S. completes a $32 million implementation of an electronic program for tracking foreign students.

In early October, after talks with education officials including University of California and California State administrators, Feinstein backed away from the moratorium proposal. "While I will be working to clean up the student visa program, I pulled back on the moratorium for now because the schools have assured me that they will help to reform this program," Feinstein said in a statement.

Chris Harrington, a University of California spokesman, expressed support for Feinstein's proposal to fund the tracking system. "The University of California recognizes that the senator wants action and so does the university in terms of a tracking system," Harrington said by phone. "We will continue to work with the senator as the legislation moves forward."

In 1996 Congress approved an electronic system to collect data on foreign students. The legislation required the Immigration and Naturalization Service to collect data on all international students by 2003, but so far it hasn't been implemented.

There are more than 50,000 students from China in the United States, the largest number from any one country. Eight percent of UC Berkeley's 30,500 students are from abroad, said Gregg Thomson, Office of Student Research director. One out of every eight foreign students is from China.

At the graduate level, their numbers are higher. Of the 8,186 graduate students, 20 percent are foreign. One out of every five foreign graduate students at UC Berkeley is from China.

Despite Feinstein's backing away from the student visa moratorium, international students at UC Berkeley remain concerned. The Services for International Students and Scholars office is recommending that all foreign students and scholars delay winter break travel plans.

"Everything that's going to happen as result of September 11 hasn't yet happened," said Ted Goode, director of the Office of International Students and Scholars. "We are anxious that the U.S. response is a reasoned one that meets both the goals of national interest in terms of security but also meet the United States' values of people-to-people exchanges."

Goode said that his office advises Chinese students that it isn't any easier to get a visa in Mexico or Canada. But sometimes the office will recommend a trip to a country bordering the U.S. if a student won't have time to visit the American embassy or a consulate in China. Some students try first in Canada or Mexico for their peace of mind, he said.

Even before the attacks, Chinese students faced worsening odds of coming to the United States to go to school.

The State Department does not usually release visa-denial rates. But in July the Chronicle of Higher Education reported the number of visa applications that American officials in China rejected over the past two years.

From May 15 through June 20 last year, the five U.S. visa-granting offices in China received 5,408 student visa applications and approved 3,946, a denial rate of 41 percent. That's an increase over 1999, when they received 6,535 applications and issued 3,801 visas, a rejection rate of 27 percent. Because U.S. officials counted applications, not individuals, people who applied more than once would be counted multiple times.

But while that period shows an increase in the number of visa rejections, the U.S. State Department reports that the overall number of Chinese students receiving student visas is climbing. In 1999, the State Department issued 16,303 student visas, while the following year that number rose to 21,586, a 33 percent increase.

"Obviously, we understand the frustration of those Chinese students and scholars who have been unable to receive visas to study in the United States," said State Department deputy spokesman Phillip Reeker at a September press briefing.

"But it is simply not true that we are applying tougher standards or refusing more Chinese student visa applicants than in the past."

U.S. officials denied a Chinese student who was doing research in Germany a student visa to study at Berkeley this fall, Goode said. Embassy staff advised the student to apply for the visa in his home country, which he plans to do this fall.

Goode said he believed that all other Chinese students planning to attend Berkeley this fall were able to secure visas. Twelve had been denied on their first applications, but secured visas on subsequent attempts.

Not all potential students are so lucky. Lang Tao, a 26-year-old news producer at government-run China Central Television in Beijing, applied twice this summer for a student visa, she said by e-mail. She had been accepted to the University of Missouri Graduate School of Journalism and said she saved enough for tuition.

When she first applied for a student visa in July, the consular official asked her plans in the United States, her employment and how she was paying for school. His denial was swift.

"In no more that half a minute, he rejected me, and didn't even bother to see all the documents I brought all the way," Lang said. "We Chinese have a saying: To treat people like straw. I think that is what the official did to me."

A month later Lang, whose husband is studying at the University of Texas, was rejected again.

Now she worries about what the United States' response to the September terrorist strikes will mean for her future chances. "It's not good news for us," she said.