WASHINGTON, 11 January 2005 — The 9/11 terrorist attacks brought a virtual halt to the majority of Muslim and Arabs students studying in the United States. US officials say the government does not want them to stay away. But are they really welcome back?

Government officials told journalists at the Washington-based Foreign Press Center on Friday that the answer is “Yes”. As long as students have their papers in order.

Michael Garcia, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in charge of immigration and customs enforcement said his agency’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, has been successful.

The aim at the Department of Homeland Security and ICE is to “restore integrity” to the US immigration system, he said, and “to close down vulnerabilities” that have developed over the years and allowed terrorists to enter the US.

He cited Hani Hanjour, a 9/11 hijacker who came into the United States on a student visa, who never attended school and piloted the plane into the Pentagon, killing 200 people. “Many of those hijackers would come under additional scrutiny today through the various programs we have at the Department of Homeland Security and various procedures,” said Garcia. “SEVIS has been very successful. It has strengthened and automated a system for tracking student visas that a mere three years ago was a paper process.”

As schools prepare to begin the first semester of 2005, Garcia said all students should review the requirements and to make sure that records are updated and accurate.

The US is working to minimize delays and disruptions for legitimate student visitors, he said, and students and schools are expected to comply with the program’s requirements.

To keep abreast of these requirements, Garcia said students should log on to the ICE website — www.ice.gov.

Janice Jacobs, deputy assistant secretary for visa affairs at State Department, said rumors have distorted the realities of applications for US visas.

Only “about 2.2 percent of all visa applications — not just student applications, represent cases that require additional scrutiny back here in Washington. That’s only about 2.2 percent of roughly the 7 million people who were processed last year,” said Jacobs.

In the past, it took an average of 75 days to process visas, she said. “I’m happy to report that last month, the average processing time for those cases was 14 days.”