The unsurprising revelation that foiled terrorist Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, arrested last week for trying to blow up the Federal Reserve building in New York, entered on a student visa has once again provoked demands for reform from lawmakers. But the types of reforms being pushed, while worthy, will not address the most fundamental problem with our student visa program, and would not have interfered with the admission of Nafis.
The more serious problem is that our student visa program today is less like a public diplomacy program and more like a cash cow for a favored special interest group — the higher education industry. When our government enables these schools' dependency on foreign students by adopting overly generous standards for approval (as is the case now), not only does it worsen a national security vulnerability, making it too easy for people like Nafis to get in, but it becomes just another backdoor immigration program that dilutes the already anemic employment prospects for our own students.
It's hard to tell at this point whether Nafis truly was a reasonable candidate for admission on a foreign student visa. The State Department should launch an investigation, as requested by several lawmakers, and release a copy of Nafis' application to back up its claim that there was no obvious reason to deny him admission. I issued and refused a lot of student visas when I was a consular officer, and from what little has been revealed about Nafis, even assuming the absence of known terrorism connections, he clearly was not a slam dunk approval, although I can understand how some officers would rationalize the issuance.
Yes, Nafis came from an affluent family that apparently could afford the tuition at a relatively affordable U.S. college. But he was applying at age 21, a little older than the usual new college student. It would have been reasonable for the consular officer to notice that and ask what he had been doing since he finished secondary school. If Nafis told the truth the officer would have learned that he had already flunked out of two different colleges in Dhaka, where he lived — a good reason to refuse the visa.
But nowadays, by policy, officers are encouraged to be lenient with student visa applicants, particularly in evaluating their likelihood to return. The push since the Bush administration has been to increase the number of student visas issued, with little thought to the risks and adverse effects.
Since 2007, student visa issuances worldwide have gone from 320,548 to 476,071 — an increase of nearly 50 percent. In Bangladesh, the total number of visas has gone up 32 percent since 2007, but the number of student visas has doubled over that time frame, from 559 in 2007 to 1,136 in 2011. We have no idea how many student visa holders from Bangladesh have overstayed or adjusted to guestworker or green card status after completing their degree because no recent administrations have seen fit to keep track. Perhaps some enterprising journalist will submit a FOIA request for any validation studies done by the consular staff in Dhaka that would provide some justification for the growth in issuances over the years.
The steady growth in visa issuances to Bangladeshis is especially puzzling considering that Bangladesh is one of the countries that gives us a hard time when we try to deport those of its citizens who are caught violating our immigration laws. This country's rather undiplomatic tendencies were on display most recently when its ambassador in Washington, Akramul Quader, actually tried to deny that Nafis was from Bangladesh, suggesting he was an imposter from Myanmar, even though the family was well known in Dhaka and had appeared in nearly every media account of Quazi's arrest.
So why would the State Department demand that its officers suspend their best judgment in order to increase issuances of student visas in Bangladesh (and other places)? Beyond the pressure to issue, consular officers overseas are now expected to assist U.S. colleges in hosting recruiting events at their posts. Because the higher education industry has convinced our government to subsidize them, in effect, by facilitating the admission of many run-of-the-mill students to pay top tuition rates, even at run-of-the-mill colleges and universities that might otherwise fail or have to find another way to attract U.S. students.
Southeast Missouri State University is one of those schools. Located in Cape Girardeau, a small town in a rural area, known mainly as the birthplace of Rush Limbaugh, it has about 10,000 students, 80 percent of whom are from Missouri. Several years ago, the university undertook a deliberate campaign to recruit more foreign students, mainly from Asia. Between 2011 and 2012 they increased their foreign student enrollment by 45 percent, to more than 830 "non-resident alien" students by the fall of 2012. This means that 7 percent of their total enrollment is from abroad, compared with 8 percent African American and 2 percent Hispanic- and Asian-American. Perhaps foreign students are a way for this university to get ethnic diversity without having to work to find non-white Americans. And why can't they find enough Americans to attend? They obviously are not picky about academic qualifications, since they accepted Nafis, a two-time flunk-out.
Who really benefits from the wide-open door we provide to foreign students? Obviously the foreign students do, many of whom end up staying, either legally or otherwise. One recent foreign grad from Southeast Missouri State noted to a local newspaper that he couldn't very well be expected to go back to his home country of Nepal because he'd majored in accounting and that degree would do him no good in his home country's very different financial sector. But does Missouri need him? What are we really accomplishing through the foreign student visa program, other than to expand the supply of marginally skilled young people whose employment prospects are already quite limited?
