Under a new policy imposed by the Bush administration three months ago, the State Department has been engaged with other government agencies to review the visa-issuing process. This has created a backflow of applications and unremitting delays for foreign students waiting to return to school in the United States.Until recently, international students could have visas re-issued to them while still in America. Due to the new Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, which President Bush signed in May to secure domestic boarders from unwanted activity, students must now obtain visas from their home countries.

After Sept. 11, males between the ages of 16 and 45 who applied for student visas as citizens of a state-sponsor of terrorism, which according to the United States includes Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and many Middle East nations, required the approval of officials in Washington. After 30 days, if nothing negative was found, the visa could be issued.

Things have changed. The consular office must now wait to hear a response from Washington, giving the evaluating applications more time, but leaving visa issue dates uncertain.

Extra scrutiny has caused a massive overload in the screening process. Recently, the New York Times reported one official who estimated that 100,000 visa applications are still under review by the F.B.I. and C.I.A.

Director of International Students and Scholars at Brandeis, David Elwell, is warning students to be prepared for some changes.

"(They) are becoming the guinea pigs for new immigration systems. It's very difficult to be clear on what's actually going on," he said.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service is requiring all international students, including the 386 at Brandeis, to be tracked through the Student Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, an online database.

SEVIS will be activated Jan. 30, replacing the current paper-driven process. With the new database in effect, the State Department aims at being able to go online and search the records of any international student. The administration hopes this will speed-up the application process. But until that date, students are still experiencing delays.

On Nov. 9, 2001, the State Department released an interview with Spokesman Richard Boucher about the new database.

"There will be a period of visa processing when the various databases won't be linked up, we won't have all of the information together," Boucher said. "And that is going to mean that for some people in some countries it's going to slow down the processing. And then once we get the system back working the way it should, once we know that our standard database check will cover all the possibilities, we will be able to get back in several months to the kind of speedy, efficient, courteous, careful and pleasant visa processing services that we offer now."

The problem is interminable for most students.

"It's unfortunate that students are becoming the guinea pigs for new immigration systems," Elwell said. "SEVIS will make the process a little easier. I see that as a long time possibility though."

Arab Mukherjee '06, an international student from India, like most students the Justice interviewed at Brandeis, did not experience much difficulty with obtaining a visa.

"In the interview they want to make sure of two things," Mukherjee said. "They want to know that you have money to cover you education and make certain you don't want to emigrate. If you can prove that, they will let you in."

But Mukherjee did know somebody who was denied entry to America.

"I knew person who went to community college and went back to India and could not get his visa re-issued. It got denied for some reason. I don't know why," Mukherjee said.

Nour F. Al-Sabeeh '05, an international student also knew people who could not get visas.

"I saw that many of my friends had difficulty obtaining visas," Al-Sabeeh said. "More specifically, my male friends were not able to obtain new student visas to come into the United States, whether they were incoming freshman or transfer students within the US."

"Once they spell out procedures, it will be easier," Elwell said.