America
Human Bombs and US doors
Suspicious post 9/11 Washington closes door to Arab-Muslim out of its education, but isn't that what Bin Laden wants?
Dec 2, 2001

Every year, tens of thousands of Arab and Muslim youths apply to be admitted into US colleges for an education they can't get back home. Many times more want to live or work there.

After Sept 11 attacks, a security-conscious America has not quite slammed the door shut, but made it harder for people from "suspicious" countries to study or work there.

New restrictions were put in place requiring longer, stricter checks on 16 to 45-year-old men from Muslim and Arab countries wanting tourist, student and business visas.

They include Indonesia and Malaysia.

Before the terrorist assaults, citizens from Saudi Arabia, a staunch US ally were given a visa almost immediately. Of the 19 terrorists, 11 were from this oil-rich country.

So today, the same checks apply to Riyadh.

Under the new regulations, names of applicants are checked against FBI records and a State Department database of suspicious people. The process takes about 20 days.

Among the 25 countries subject to the new rules are Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

We understand the US authorities are reviewing their long-term immigration policies regarding foreigners who seek to enter this traditional migrant-generous nation.

The strictness is, of course, to keep away potential terrorists, but because killers are not territory-bound, even friendly countries may be affected.

Killers can come from anywhere and are, in fact, more likely to travel on passports (faked or bribed) from friendly countries rather than hostile ones.

This could be bad news for the world, especially no-visa countries like Singapore, 14 per cent of whose population are Muslim.

Muslims say the climate since Sept. 11 has been hostile. Officials and faculty at local colleges say most students from Middle Eastern countries have dropped out and moved home.

Attendance at mosques has dipped. Many devout Muslim women have stopped wearing head scarves, fearful of being conspicuous, and Christian Chaldeans who moved here from Iraq have begun to wear large crosses in public, to distinguish themselves from Muslims.

The biggest blow will fall on the bona fide Muslim students not only in America, but also, to a lesser extent, Western Europe. It represents the best means of a better life for themselves and their countries.

Few countries can match America's easy entry for outsiders to work, study, do business or seek refuge there.

Singaporeans were used to being granted 10-year multiple-entry visas whenever they wanted to holiday there. That was several years ago; today they can go without visas.

Whether this visa-free generosity will continue remains in doubt.

The current restrictions have increased anti-US sentiment in countries already angered by its strikes in Afghanistan, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad expressed "dismay" at the decision.

The vast majority of students in America are law-abiding, finish their studies and go home. But because of the lax supervision, the student visa is frequently a trick to gain US citizenship.

A lot of these "so-called" students simply disappear into crowded American cities. In USA, nobody carries identity cards, and this is a big help to criminals or terrorists.

According to records, there are some 500,000 students from all over the world studying in US colleges and institutions. Nobody, however, is keeping track on them.

Take two recent cases published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Salam Ibrahim El Zaatari, jailed on federal charges of trying to board a plane at Pittsburgh International Airport with a utility knife in his carry-on bag, was supposed to be in school.

The 21-year-old from Lebanon entered this country in 1999 on a student visa that required him to be enrolled at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. But the last time he showed up for class was May 2, 2000.

Living in the city, he didn't seem to be interested in completing his degree, didn't work, flew home to Lebanon and came back and spent at least some of his ample free time smoking pot, according to court testimony.

The federal government had no idea he had been violating his visa until he was stopped at an airport gate Oct. 28 with the retractable razor, which, he said, was an artist's blade for cutting paper.

If it weren't for his arrest, no one would have known he had been staying in the US illegally on an "out of status" visa.

The second person, Subash Gurung, 27, a Nepalese man was caught recently at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago with seven knives and a stun gun.

He was in the US on an expired student visa.

Hani Hanjour, suspected in the hijacking of the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon Sept. 11, entered the United States on a student visa. He never showed up for classes.

But balanced against this security preoccupation is a realisation that making laws so tough as to discourage Arab and Muslim students studying in the West is bad international relations.

Already Sept 11 has created a hostile atmosphere in many campuses for these students that a number has gone home.

The world will lose out if the mass of 1.2 billion Muslims become inward-looking, deprived of knowledge and progress. That's what the likes of Osama Bin Laden want.

Seah Chiang Nee