By spencer willig
The Summer Pennsylvanian
Growing numbers of Penn students are feeling the effects of a U.S. State Department security advisory specifically targeting Chinese nationals.
Many of the students coming to Penn from China have yet received a visa according to Wharton Ph.D student and Beijing University graduate Huarong Tang, who has been tracking their progress with his colleagues on Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania's International Students Committee.
The advisory, a reference to section 221(g) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, concerned many in the academic community when first issued in 1999.
Worried that the advisory's warnings were broad enough to be applied to Chinese students studying almost any natural science, the Forum on International Physics protested the advisory at the time.
"Disturbed by the generalization of the possible adverse activities of one individual to a larger group, and the singling out of one group based on nationality," the Forum chastised the State Department in a formal statement for failing to recognize that "our National Security depends in no small part on the vitality of the scientific enterprise -- and this enterprise is put at risk by the State Department advisory."
Four years later, applied with the zeal expected of U.S. customs and consular officers after Sept. 11, the advisory's directives coupled with new alert lists have stranded Chinese students for months. With acceptance letters to prestigious American universities -- but without visas -- Chinese students worry that they will miss registration deadlines and are frustrated with slow visa processing. Some staged a protest at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing last year.
"I never heard of it before 2001," Tang said, confirming that the theoretical problems with the policy became harsh realities for scholars with Chinese passports after the American War on Terrorism began.
"I think maybe this advisory has been abused," he said.
Cindy Wang, a graduate student in Penn's bioengineering program -- who was recently marooned for four months while visiting her family -- tends to agree.
"My work has nothing to do with military service," Wang said, adding that the consular officer who interviewed her seemed to consider all sciences to be the same -- and all scientists to be equally dangerous.
Her story is reportedly typical. Working with GET-UP to spread the word about and provide aid and comfort to Chinese students waiting for visas, Tang has come across chemists, physicists and even one visiting scholar in philosophy who have been cooling their heels, waiting abroad to be admitted or readmitted to the U.S. to continue their educations.
With no end in site, many students face losing their teaching assistant stipends if they do not attend English language training that begins on July 7.
Wang was told she would have to wait while the Department did a background check, despite showing officials her work and a letter from her advisor detailing the benign nature of her studies.
"The officer said 'I want to keep my job,'" Wang said, remembering the explanation given for the security check that would ultimately cost her a semester.
What began as a visit to an ill, diabetic mother became an ordeal of boredom and anxiousness.
"I had nothing to do," Wang said. "My work combines theoretical work with experimental studies... I was delayed by half a year."
She also had a job -- and a husband -- to worry about losing.
"We'd never been apart so long," she said, adding that her mother's health seemed to deteriorate as she, in turn, became concerned that the rest of Wang's world would not wait for her to return.
Though happily reunited with her husband and relieved to receive a message from her advisor, Britton Chance, informing her that her department would "keep your desk for you," Wang is now determined not to leave the country again before her education is complete.
"I want to warn people," she said. "Don't leave."
The International Student Committee will hold an open meeting at the GET-UP office at the Lutheran Church at 4 p.m. today to discuss how best to help Penn students caught in China.
