This week the State Department informed NAFSA, the international student advisor organization, that institutions with J visa program will need to electronically submit an Exchange Visitor Program Application (Form DS-3036) by December 16 to ensure that the program is properly enrolled in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) by the January 30, 2003 deadline.
SEVIS is the student tracking system that has been rushed for release in response to the September 11th attacks. It is a web-based system that allows schools to submit information and event notifications to the INS and State Department while foreign students are in the US. It is hoped that the system will make it easier for the INS to remove people with student visas who are not actually attending school.
Since the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, there have been calls for a student tracking system, but none ever went past the pilot program stage. While January 30 is the deadline for full SEVIS implementation, there is a significant possibility that the program will not be fully operational at that time.
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