The U.S. recently enacted a law that will make it mandatory for educational institutions to provide information on its international students to the INS’s Student Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) computer system.
SEVIS is a system of racial profiling that singles out and criminalizes international students in the U.S. It requires that schools police international students by providing private student information to the INS, State Dept and others. It aims to intimidate them and silence their voices. And if the government is successful in implementing SEVIS, the U.S. will be one step closer to being a police state.
The Campaign Against SEVIS seeks to create an atmosphere on U.S. campuses where international students are free of intimidation and fear. For this to happen, SEVIS must be stopped. Join us!
OPPOSE ALL ATTACKS ON INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS!
The Stop SEVIS Campaign is a project of the Hawai`i Chapter of Refuse & Resist!
e-mail: stopSEVIS@lava.net
SEVIS is a national computer system operated by the INS. Under a new law, schools (including colleges, universities, trade and language schools) are required to input private student records on every non-resident studying in the U.S. on a student visa. Information initially required will include name, country of origin, current address, major, student status, financial information and misconduct. Required information can be expanded to anything the government deems “relevant.” Access to this information will be available to the INS, State Dept, DOE, FBI, CIA and other federal agencies that want it.
Until now, the INS was solely responsible for monitoring an international student’s status. If a student had a problem with the INS, the school was in the position of being a student advocate. Under SEVIS, the school changes from advocate to informant.
Until now, schools were required to collect five items of information on each international student. This material was not automatically turned over to the INS. Instead the INS made requests for limited information on individual students. The university routinely confirmed or denied a student’s enrollment on their campus, but if additional information was requested, the student was notified and the information that could be divulged was restricted to the five items of information.
Under SEVIS, information on every international student is automatically provided to the government via computer. Much more information on each student is collected and input. SEVIS works like the Interpol data base. The information is shared among federal agencies (and even countries), and the student has no control over what is provided.
If the voices of international students are silenced, whose voice will be silenced next?
Even under the current system, international students have been victims of widespread suspicion and abuse - especially when their country of origin or nationality is perceived as an enemy of the U.S. SEVIS will make them more fearful of reporting incidents of abuse and racism. It will deny them any power over their own student records. By targeting international students and subjecting them to the most repressive institutionalized surveillance in the U.S. the only thing SEVIS will accomplish is to increase these students’ vulnerability.
Refuse & Resist! is an organization that builds resistance to today’s national agenda of repression and cruelty, poverty and punishment. The Campaign to Stop SEVIS is a project of the Hawai`i Chapter of R&R. Through its office in Honolulu, it moderates a listserv that keeps those who sign up informed about SEVIS, attacks on international students, and resistance to these attacks. It has a Website with brochures, legal info, graphics and fact sheets that can be downloaded and used to build grassroots resistance everywhere. It seeks to build a network that helps organizers everywhere build local campaigns, utilizing forms that are most effective and appropriate in their communities.
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a
Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I was a Protestant.
And then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak out.
Pastor Niemoeller,Nazi Germany
To contact the Campaign to Stop SEVISMail:
P. O. Box 521, Honolulu, HI 96819
Tel: (808) 598-4653
e-mail: stopSEVIS@lava.net
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