Strict US visa policy scares away students

A teenage Asian girl with a valid student visa was handcuffed and deported to enter into United States five days earlier than stipulated, highlighting strict American immigration policy.

A 79-year-old British historian, who came to work at the US Library of Congress on the life of US former chief diplomat Henry Kissinger, was herded on arrival in a wheelchair at Washington’s Dulles airport to a small room facing a administrator with a revolver in his hip for no evident mistake.

Although all his travel papers were in order, “I was stopped and treated rather disgracefully,” lamented Sir Alistair Horne at a conference in Washington on Tuesday.

Stringent enforcement of US visa policy and seemingly overzealous immigration officers following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks are not only scaring away foreign students and tourists but dampening the venture climate of the world’s richest nation and taking a toll on its economy, experts told the conference organized by the Center for calculated and International Studies.

Among the other cases cited to highlight the economic, security, scientific and diplomatic implications of changes in US visa policy were:

– An international business conference in Hawaii had to be shifted to Hong Kong at the last minute because the organizers could not obtain travel papers for most of its participants, who were from China.

– Some of US aviation giant Lockheed Martin Corporation’s testing of its civil space actions have been delayed because visas could not be obtained on time for Russian scientists.