International students planning to exit and re-enter the United States during the course of their educations would do well to read up on the Department of Homeland Security's current procedures and protocols -- and pack plenty of extra socks, just in case. There might be a wait.
Forged in the context of post-Sept. 11 security concerns, new U.S. immigration policies have directly impacted the lives of a number of students at Penn, forcing them to wait in their home countries for months as their paperwork churns its way through the American bureaucracy.
"Many Chinese students are suffering from the security check" policies, Chinese Association of Economics and Business President Huarong Tang said. The Wharton Ph.D candidate added that there were at least three cases involving Chinese nationals at Penn alone, and more than 300 cases across America.
One student -- chemistry Ph.D candidate Hongling Zou, has been marooned in the People's Republic of China for half a year.
"One of the things I'm concerned about is this has been going on with her since January, and I only recently heard about it," Graduate and Professional Student Association chairman and Wharton MBA student Robert Alvarez said. "We should raise these issues more quickly when they come up."
Penn's Office of International Programs does not have data on the University-affiliated international students currently caught abroad.
"Those sorts of things are beginning to show up," OIP advisor Shalini Bhutani said.
"We don't hear about everybody who gets delayed," she continued. "Plus once somebody goes into the system... it's really hard to tell where the delay is."
Alvarez added that GAPSA is working toward a "pan-Ivy response" to students' immigration problems that should get rolling this coming fall.
Tang said that since Zou's security check has now been reviewed, he is confident that she will receive her visa within the week. He dismissed suggestions that a petition circulated by graduate student union organizing committee, Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania, had effected the process, noting that "her waiting paid off."
However, some students' stories stand testament to a pro-active approach.
This past spring the story of recent Wharton graduate Yahya Jalil demonstrated the potential consequences of venturing abroad as an international student -- and the flexibility of the relatively new laws.
Jalil's situation became a test case for changes to immigration policy that allowed consulate officers to make exceptions for those otherwise denied visas for technical violations on a case-by-case basis.
Jalil -- who completed his MBA program electronically from Pakistan as he awaited clearance to rejoin his wife in Philadelphia -- ran into trouble when he went with his wife to London on a job-hunting trip in early March. When he returned, he was notified that he had failed to register at his point of departure before leaving and could not remain in the country.
Later claiming that neither the OIP nor even airline officials warned him of the requirement to officially notify the U.S. government of his departure, Jalil obeyed the laws he knew existed -- right down to leaving from a designated point of departure -- but was nevertheless red flagged without any ability to appeal the classification.
Having made a good-faith effort to identify and obey relevant laws, it would take Jalil months, thousands of dollars and the support of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu to clear his record and be permitted to return to the United States.
Fortunately for international students, the system appears to be evolving. Even more fortunately for Jalil, a relative in New Orleans "well known to Senator Landrieu" made his case and pushed for Jalil's swift return.
"It looked like here was an intelligent, well spoken and very well written young man who'd tried very hard to do everything" asked of him, a staffer in Senator Landrieu's office said. "This was a blind spot in the system."
