The United States consul general in Jeddah recently said in this newspaper that now was the time to apply for a US visa for new or renewing Saudi students as it “may take a couple of months.” She made it look like a matter of simple routine, and as though Saudi students were welcome in the US and it was only a matter of time before they received their visa.
She must be joking. What Saudi in his right mind would think about studying in the United States these days? The obstacles start with the application process.
The wait is not, as she noted, “a couple of months.” Arab News has learned that some Saudi students who were lucky to get a visa waited over six months. Some of them were in the United States and came back to renew their status. In the meantime they had rented accommodation there with all their belongings inside. Their landlords threw out their property and took them to court in absentia and ruined their “credit history”. They also had their study plans completely destroyed.
One unlucky student who fell in this predicament was Moayad Qusti. “My credit history is ruined and I only had one semester left,” he told Arab News. But he was one of the lucky ones. Countless others had their application refused while they were writing their dissertation. Their PhD program and years of study went down the drain.
Arab News came across one unfortunate student who was studying in Pittsburgh. “They refused me a visa to return and finish my thesis. I have now applied to study in the UK, but I have to start the PhD program all over again. I lost three years of my life.” Others had their whole careers and life plans ruined because their application was rejected outright. Ask Saudi Aramco. Recently over 100 of its trainee applicants were rejected (mostly engineers) and they had to send them to Europe for training instead.
What happens if after a seven-month wait the visa arrives? One Saudi student who received the visa told Arab News they had to “sign a document that states we must register with INS officials once we land in the United States and 30-40 days afterward and then again every year.” They said the process is humiliating. “You are fingerprinted and photographed like a criminal,” was how Khalid Al-Juma put it. He was asked questions like: “Who are you in contact with in Saudi Arabia?” or “What is your parents’ address?”
“We don’t have numbers or street addresses in Saudi Arabia, so when somebody has to re-register 30 days later he may accidentally change ‘behind the hospital’ to ‘next to the hospital.’ He can then be arrested for fraud,” he explained.
They also must give a credit card number. “This is done to track the Saudi student in the United States,” one student told Arab News. Many students don’t have credit cards in Saudi Arabia, especially 18-year-olds who are entering college. Well, the credit card, one INS official told Arab News is “a must,” and one can be refused entry for not having one.
Hussein G., who goes through the process often as he travels to Canada, told Arab News: “It can take up to four hours and INS officials, most of whom are only high school graduates, can be very rude. Some of them have an inferiority complex. We also pay for the NSEERS system with a $14 tax on our flights in the United States.
“You also have to go through this humiliation when leaving the United States. Some INS offices close early, so you have to sleep in the airport overnight, miss the flight, pay a $100 fee to the airlines just to be fingerprinted on exiting the United States. If you don’t, they told me they can refuse us entry forever.”
Arab News learned that some Saudi students, despite having a valid visa, have been refused entry and were deported back to Saudi Arabia. A Saudi academic official in Washington said this happened to four students in one week in January. “One of them came with his mother and was told: ‘We will let your mother in but you are denied entry,’” he said. However, the student “had a valid visa.”
The document also states that if you leave the place where you are registered, you have to inform the INS, and if you are visiting a friend, then the friend has to go to the INS with you. “Let’s say a student lives in Pittsburgh and decides to fly down to Orlando for the weekend to visit Disney and Epcot,” Muhammad Al-Jehny explained. “Well, he must go to the INS center in Tallahassee, Florida and register there. Apparently, INS centers are closed at weekends, and Tallahassee is 500 km away.” There is usually only one INS center in each state. Al-Jehny, who only has a few months left on his thesis, added: “This is impossible to follow and again is just another way of trying to humiliate and discourage Saudi students and make up a complication so they can arrest us when they want.
“In the United States only sex offenders are made to report to police when they travel outside their home towns. We Saudis have now become worse than sex offenders, because sex offenders don’t have to be fingerprinted three times a year, and at least police stations are in every town and open 24 hours a day.”
According to Lori R., an academic adviser at one of America’s biggest schools, “you now have to renew your I-20 every five months. This can be a troublesome task as international offices are so booked with INS wrangling that we now ask for one to two months in advance.”
If Saudis still decide to study in the US after all this hassle, they will continue to live in fear. The FBI has been on a massive witch-hunt for Saudis. “The phones of all Saudi students are tapped,” Raid A. told Arab News. He noted horrifying tales of the FBI “entering homes at 8 in the morning and interrogating Saudis for up to four hours because they donated a $20 check to a charity that was registered with the United States and the United Nations before it was termed a ‘terrorist organization.’”
He added: “Saudi students are tracked like dogs. Our life is like living in a big jail. They are interrogating every Saudi one by one.” Even if they lead a normal peaceful life and never leave their place of residence, they may still be harassed. The new Patriot Act states that one can be arrested on “suspicion.” “This is a complete violation of your civil rights and can be greatly abused,” Muhammad Y. says.
Arab News learned that a few weeks ago two Saudi students were arrested under this act. The arrest wasn’t a polite one. A Saudi Embassy official who wished to remain anonymous told Arab News: “The FBI and the Marshals busted into the student’s homes with machine guns at 3 a.m. and arrested them on ‘suspicion.’ One of the student’s wives fainted and suffered vaginal bleeding. She was rushed to hospital where she stayed for four days, one day in the ICU. Since then the student has been languishing in jail, with no charges brought.”
One of the academic advisers at the Saudi Cultural Mission told Arab News: “The number of new students last year was zero. We only have exits.” He said these exits were “students who graduate, go on vacation and never return. Sometimes their visas are rejected back home, so they transfer to another country. Some are arrested here in the United States and deported.”
“It is only a matter of time before we no longer have Saudi students in the United States and we close down the cultural mission,” he said. He added that it was a mistake to rely on only one country for education but this has opened “avenues of education in other countries for us.” He said many Saudi students were now going to Malaysia and Eastern Europe.
So consul general, don’t mislead aspiring Saudi students who wish to advance their career. Advise them to stay home if your country does not want them.
