[IP] As one door closes... From tomorrow's Nature
Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:26:11 -0500
From: John Adams <jadams01@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: For IP? From tomorrow's Nature
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Hi, Dave,
Seen this yet? I bolded paragraph three--it seems to sum it up.
<http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v427/n6971/full/427190a_fs.html>http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v427/n6971/full/427190a_fs.html
Nature 427, 190 - 195 (15 January 2004); doi:10.1038/427190a
As one door closes...
Immigration controls introduced under the 'war on terror' are restricting
the flow of foreign researchers into the United States. With other
countries moving in on this pool of talent, will the balance of scientific
power shift?
Zhang is a fifth-year chemistry graduate student at the University of
Wisconsin at Madison. He is hardworking, popular with his colleagues, and
should be on the threshold of a rewarding future in science. Yet a 2002
visit to Zhang's native China nearly derailed that career. He is so scarred
by the experience that he agreed to be interviewed only on condition that
his real name was not used in this article.
Nature's reporters are used to Chinese scientists requesting anonymity
before speaking openly on controversial issues. But Zhang is not worried
about the attitude of the government in Beijing. Rather, he is wary of
consular officers, FBI operatives and other officials of the US federal
government who seem to regard him as a potential terrorist, rather than a
valuable member of their country's scientific workforce.
Zhang's nightmare began in January 2002, when he left Madison to spend the
Chinese New Year with his friends and family. Zhang knew that immigration
controls had been tightened up since the terrorist attacks of the previous
September, and sought advice from his university about how to avoid any
problems getting back into the United States. He carried with him proof of
enrolment, details of the courses he had taken, a letter from his
department and government forms confirming his immigration status ? which
he assumed would allow him to get his student visa renewed. "I did all that
I could have done," Zhang says.
But when he went to the nearest US consulate for an interview, Zhang was
told he would have to wait. His particular field of study overlapped with a
'watch list' of technologies of potential interest to terrorists that had
been supplied to consular officials. This meant that his application would
have to undergo an interagency security review, involving security
officials from agencies including the FBI and the Department of State.
Days stretched into weeks, then months, with no news of progress with his
application. Eventually, Zhang found himself working in the office of a
shipping company to make ends meet, while his colleagues continued their
research without him. Because he didn't know when he was going to return,
he was forced to continue paying rent on his apartment in Madison. Zhang
finally received his visa in September 2002, leaving him hopelessly behind
with his PhD studies. "My whole plan for graduation has been postponed," he
says.
Zhang is not an anomaly. "There have been enormous problems," says John
Wright, who chairs the University of Wisconsin's chemistry department. Most
of the students and postdocs whose applications to enter the United States
have been questioned have eventually been let in. But Wright frets that the
new immigration rules will deter future applications, weakening his
department, which is currently considered among the best in the world. "The
quality of research will decrease," he says.
Many US researchers and university officials share Wright's concerns. The
United States is a nation of immigrants, and nowhere is this more evident
than in the country's research labs. Strip away the legions of foreign PhD
students, postdocs and tenure-track researchers, and the behemoth that is
the US scientific enterprise would look much less impressive (see figure).
What's more, in recent years, other countries have realized the value of
attracting the best of the world's young researchers, and have started
taking steps to compete more effectively in this marketplace (see 'You're
welcome').
So will the United States' draconian response to the terrorist threat cause
a fundamental shift in the international movement of researchers ? and
perhaps even alter the global balance of scientific power? It's difficult
to say, because attaching firm numbers to such trends is all but
impossible. Scientists travel to the United States on a wide variety of
visa types, depending on the purpose and length of their stay. And because
they make up a tiny proportion of the total number of foreigners entering
the country each year, even a major decline would fail to show up in
overall visa statistics. Data collected in different countries are also
hard to compare: many nations don't separate visiting scientists from
researchers in the humanities and other disciplines; some consider students
separately from postdoctoral researchers, whereas others lump them all
together.
"One of the great problems in dealing with this issue is that you get tons
of anecdotes, but it is difficult to get data," says Norman Neureiter, who
served as science adviser to US Secretary of State Colin Powell for three
years until September 2003. Nature's enquiries reinforce Neureiter's view
of the anecdotal evidence. Our reporters found dozens of examples of
scientists at every level who have experienced problems entering the United
States. And in some cases, they found researchers now looking for work in
countries such as Australia, Britain and Canada, rather than enduring the
US immigration process.
Out in the cold
The sketchy data available suggest that such anecdotes illustrate a
widespread problem ? and that this is particularly acute for postdoctoral
researchers in the 'hard' sciences and engineering. In November, for
instance, the Association of International Educators, an organization based
in Washington DC that promotes scholarly exchange worldwide, released a
survey of more than 300 US colleges and universities. The survey revealed
that the number of students whose start dates were delayed by visa problems
was 48% higher in 2003 than at the start of the previous academic year; for
'scholars' ? a broad category dominated by young postdoctoral researchers ?
the increase was 76%. More than three-quarters of the delayed students were
in the physical sciences, biological sciences or engineering; among the
scholars, these disciplines accounted for 93% of those who experienced
significant delays.
Other surveys paint a similarly bleak picture. Last July, the American
Institute of Physics reported that nearly a quarter of foreign students who
applied to study towards a PhD in physics in the United States in 2002 were
initially denied a visa. The number of foreign researchers working at the
five largest institutes on the National Institutes of Health campus in
Bethesda, Maryland, declined in 2003 for the first time in the nine years
over which records have been kept. Most strikingly, the total number of
visiting scholars in the United States declined in the 2002?03 academic
year for the first time in almost a decade.
For some observers, these statistics are enough to set off alarm bells
about the future health of US science. "We're at a critical juncture now,
and I think everybody senses it," says Irving Lerch, director of
international affairs with the American Physical Society in College Park,
Maryland. Although the likely consequences of the visa delays remain a
matter of debate, their main cause is clear ? new security procedures
introduced following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
In the immediate aftermath of those events, the state department began
expanding its 'Technology Alert List', designed to prevent dangerous
technologies getting into the hands of terrorists or hostile states. It is
now classified, but a version issued in August 2002 contained roughly 150
items, including such broad labels as 'microbiology', and common pieces of
lab equipment such as low-energy lasers. So if you work on, say, infectious
disease, or use relatively innocuous devices that have found their way onto
the state department's list, your application to enter the United States is
likely to be referred to the FBI and other federal agencies for a security
review.
Singled out
Scientists from China have borne the brunt of the new policy ? even though
its nationals have never been implicated in terrorism against US targets.
The survey by the Association of International Educators, for instance,
found that more than a third of all visiting students whose entry to the
United States was delayed were from China. In part, the large number of
Chinese who have been affected by the new restrictions reflects the fact
that they make up the biggest single group of foreign scientists seeking
employment or education in the United States. But some Chinese researchers,
who point out that the current US administration was pursuing an aggressive
policy towards their country even before the 2001 terror attacks, believe
that they are being singled out for harsh treatment (see 'We are not the
enemy').
Meanwhile, for researchers from countries such as Iran, and several others
in the Middle East, security reviews have become an almost insurmountable
barrier (see 'Never apply for a US visa again!' ). Because the US
government sees Iran as a sponsor of terrorism, its scientists cannot enter
the United States without undergoing an interagency review. Even senior
Iranian officials with longstanding ties to the US scientific community
have been unable to attend major conferences. "I have had many invitations,
but I had to say no," says Reza Mansouri, a physicist and the deputy of
research at the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology in
Tehran.
Scientists from other countries need not face a full security review, even
if their work appears on the state department's watch list. But a memo sent
in August 2002 along with a revised version of the list ensnared many
scientists who expected to sail through the immigration process. The paper
instructed that, "when in doubt", consular officers should send
applications to the state department's headquarters in Washington DC. As
the consular staff involved were mostly inexperienced, they were in doubt
all too often. The resulting backlogs caused delays of up to a year.
The memo is still causing problems. The state department claims that more
than 80% of cases referred to Washington are dealt with in 30 days. But
Wendy White, who directs the Board on International Scientific
Organizations at the US National Academies, disputes this figure. "For the
scientists we hear from, the average wait time is still over five months,"
she says.
Delays were exacerbated last July by a new rule requiring virtually all
visa applicants to be interviewed face-to-face by a consular officer. Most
scientists were already being pulled into US embassies for interviews, but
they suddenly found themselves part of a much longer queue. When Thomas
Brunold, an assistant professor in chemistry at the University of
Wisconsin, went home to Switzerland for a short visit last June, he had to
wait for three months to get an interview to renew his US visa. "I told
them I had a research group of nine people to run," Brunold says. But his
pleas fell on deaf ears, and the resulting delay cost Brunold a month's
salary.
For many researchers, the most frustrating thing about the new immigration
requirements is their inconsistency. As a result, some visa applications
shoot through the system whereas others are held up for months. And when
this happens, there is usually no explanation. "The transparency in the
process is completely missing," says Olexei Motrunich, a Ukranian physicist
who has worked in the United States since 1994, but has been stranded in
his home country since July, unable to take up a postdoctoral position at
the University of California, Santa Barbara.
"I have been telling my relatives and friends how great America is; how one
does not feel foreign in this country," says Motrunich. "Now I have to
explain to the same people why, after more than eight years of doing
science in the United States, I have a hard time receiving a visa to
continue my work."
Number one no more
For some visiting scientists, the problems don't end at the US border.
Catheryn Cotten, who directs the International Office at Duke University in
Durham, North Carolina, says that foreign nationals are finding it more
difficult than ever to secure social-security numbers, driver's licences
and other essential documents. Mansouri adds that press reports of assaults
against Iranian students at US universities are causing many of his
country's young scientists to think instead about studying in Britain or
Australia.
Such comments are worrying organizations that strive to promote
international scholarly exchange. "There's a perception that visas are too
difficult to get and the United States is an unwelcoming place," says
Victor Johnson, associate executive director for public policy at the
Association of International Educators.
Not surprisingly, researchers and university administrators in other
countries who are recruiting from the pool of scientists now experiencing
problems entering the United States are quietly satisfied with the turn of
events. Countries such as Australia, Britain and Canada were already
increasing their intake of foreign students before US visa restrictions
were imposed ? and this trend has accelerated since then.
Perhaps even more significant is the calibre of the students and
researchers now considering destinations other than the United States.
"I've had professors tell me that the quality of the Iranian students is
phenomenal," says Amy Aldous, graduate-studies recruitment manager at the
University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Baowen Li, a theoretical
physicist at the National University of Singapore, says that he is now
seeing many more applications from China's élite universities. "The change
is not in quantity but quality," says Li. "We have benefited a lot from the
US policy."
But is this the start of a trend that could ultimately undermine the United
States' leadership in science? Andreas Schleicher, who heads the Indicators
and Analysis Division at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development in Paris, argues that US dominance is so overwhelming that this
is unlikely. "More than a quarter of all students studying abroad still
travel to the United States," he says. But Neureiter, who has wrestled with
the issues from inside the US administration, is not so sanguine. "I tend
towards an apocalyptic view," he says.
How things unfold will depend on whether the visa delays experienced by
visiting scientists represent teething troubles or a more lasting obstacle.
State-department officials argue that they are now taking steps to improve
the situation. New rules should let students jump to the front of the
interview line so that they do not miss their start dates. And by March, a
new computer system should connect embassies overseas directly to security
agencies in the United States. The idea is to speed the interagency
security reviews, preventing cases such as Motrunich's from getting stuck
in limbo.
Still, the ongoing focus on security means it will be impossible to handle
applications as quickly as they were dealt with before 2001. "I think the
best we can do is to try to keep with our goal of processing all of the
cases within a 30-day period," says Janice Jacobs, deputy assistant
secretary of consular affairs at the state department.
Some US universities report that things do now seem to be getting back on
track: at Duke, for instance, the number of foreign students studying the
sciences rose once more in 2003, after two years of zero growth. But
Neureiter is worried about the potential impact of a rule implemented last
week that requires the fingerprinting of all visa applicants, and of
another that will soon demand that students and visiting scholars pay a
non-refundable fee of $100. "You can't go to a large international
scientific meeting without visas being the issue on everyone's mind,"
agrees White. "I think there's going to be a solidarity movement against
the United States."
Back in Madison, Zhang is now applying for postdoctoral positions, while
writing up his PhD thesis. Despite his experiences, he says that he would
rather stay in the United States, where he knows the research community.
"But people who were thinking about coming here for graduate school are
thinking twice," he warns. While Zhang was in China working at the shipping
company, he befriended his boss's family. The executive's two daughters
were thinking of studying medicine. Last year, they began their courses in
Britain.
Written and reported by Geoff Brumfiel, with David Cyranoski, Carina
Dennis, Jim Giles, Hannah Hoag and Quirin Schiermeier.
© 2004 Nature Publishing Group
All the best,
John A
see me fulminate at <http://www.jzip.org/>http://www.jzip.org/
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