Tense times for international travel

In August 2004, after spending the summer in New Mexico, Saed Shonnar '08 wanted to see his parents in Ramallah, West Bank, one last time before beginning his freshman year.

As a young man who travels under a passport from Syria, one of approximately 25 countries on a U.S. watch list, he had to leave from an airport where he could undergo "special registration." He was photographed and fingerprinted, and personal information was collected for a federal database.

What happened next at Denver International Airport worried Shonnar: a man with a badge reading "FBI Inspector," rather than the routine "TSA," asked him what he would be studying in college. Though Shonnar was interested in the engineering biology certificate program, he felt he had to think carefully before answering.

"I said 'engineering.' I was going to say 'engineering biology,' but I held it," Shonnar said. "I knew that the officer will not care about the details, but if he considers [biological engineering] a threat, he could be strict about it and he could take an action of deporting me or canceling my visa."

The FBI inspector then asked what kind of engineering he planned to study, Shonnar said, to which he responded he was not certain but was thinking about civil or architectural engineering. The officer left for a moment and returned to say that he "had to be careful" about what he studied, Shonnar recalled.

The episode reflects what some foreign students and several University officials believe is a troubling aspect of immigration: that immigration officials seem empowered to exercise a great deal of discretion with little oversight.

"On the borders," Shonnar said, "this officer has the power to really decide your destiny."

Government authorities acknowledge that the system can be cumbersome, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, but say that safeguards are in place to make sure people are treated fairly.

They say experiences like Shonnar's are unlikely, asserting that all FBI agents wear plain clothes and would not be involved at this stage of interrogation.

Some University officials still seem wary.

"I have always felt that the discretionary power of the people at the border is problematic," said President Tilghman, who has testified before Congress on the matter.

New Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Students Rachel Baldwin, who is in charge of international undergraduate student affairs, said foreign students have at least twice complained they were held for an hour or more while officials questioned them despite their having proper documentation.

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"They may give one student harder times than the next," she said.

The government sees things differently, saying that while the system might seem intimidating, immigration officials cannot make decisions on a whim. They say immigration officials are granted some discretion to look into an immigrant's background, but they cannot turn away someone who has proper documentation without a supervisor's approval.

At points of entry into the country, no single officer can "arbitrarily cancel a visa," said Danielle Sheahan, a spokeswoman for the Customs and Border Protection Agency.

A different government official, though, acknowledged that the immigration system can present difficulties.

"I certainly see why someone [might] have concerns about anomalies involving border crossings and visa applications," said Angela Aggeler, a Bureau of Consular Affairs spokeswoman. "These things are kind of complicated. We're not out there looking for ways to deny people entry to the United States . . . But sometimes there are bureaucratic hassles, and we're the first to admit it."

Though Shonnar left the country and reentered with only an unsettling experience, another member of the University community has seen how quickly a single official can shatter an individual's plans.

When it comes to the granting of visas in the first place, the law explicitly states that consular officers have complete discretion when issuing visas.

For non-immigrants, a central part of a visa application is proving the existence of sufficiently strong ties to their home country.

This determination is left entirely to a consular officer, whose factual determination cannot be reviewed.

Ramin Takloo-Bighash, an Iranian-born mathematics professor at the University, first came to this country in 1995 to earn his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University. Since then, he has suffered frustrations with U.S. immigration policy from the granting of visas to treatment at the border.

"I really don't understand it," he said, referring to his experiences with the system. "It's gotten to the point that if I knew personally that this was going to happen when I came to the [United States], I never would have come here for grad school. Never. It just wasn't worth it."

Takloo-Bighash was so fearful that he might not be able to return to the country if he went home that he didn't leave the United States for eight years after coming here. Several of his friends went home, he said, only to wind up stranded in Iran, unable to get a return visa.

The greatest insult came when Takloo-Bighash tried to help his parents obtain visas so they could attend his wedding in the United States in 1999. His parents went to the U.S. embassy in Dubai to apply for the visa because Iran has no U.S. embassy.

But the interviewer said that while his mother's visa could be granted immediately, clearance would take two months for his father, a former Iranian Army officer who had moved on to a civilian job five years earlier.

When his parents asked for an explanation, he said, the interviewer took out a black stamp and marked both their passports, rejecting their visa applications and recommending that they not reapply for six months.

But the Borough of Consular Affairs spokeswoman Aggeler said a sequence of events like this was not likely because the officer would ordinarily not do anything to penalize Takloo-Bighash's mother.

Frustrated, he turned to his senators for help. Both sent letters to the Dubai embassy on his parents' behalf. His parents also got copies to bring to the embassy.

It made no difference: they were not permitted to schedule a new appointment with an officer, and they both missed the wedding.

These state department officials "have absolute power over the life of the person who goes and applies for a visa," Takloo-Bighash said, "and they're not liable or responsible in any way for what they do to people."

For both Shonnar and Takloo-Bighash, a frustrating aspect of the border control and visa issuance is the lack of oversight in place to ensure that a uniform standard is applied to all individuals attempting to cross United States borders.

In 1991, an independent government organization charged with making recommendations to help improve various aspects of government bureaucracy set its sights on the visa-granting process.

In its recommendation, the Administrative Conference of the United States noted it thought "that it is important that there be at least some level of review of consular discretion to deny or grant visas."

The group suggested explicitly that the Department of State make greater efforts to comply with an existing regulation requiring the review of any visa denial, noting that such reviews were not happening frequently enough. They also suggested that individuals whose applications are denied receive written documentation of the reason for the denial.

The government says such written documentation is now given. But the law itself and substantial case law severely limits the extent to which the initial determinations of consular officials can be overturned.

Sheahan, the spokeswoman for the Customs and Border Protection Agency, noted that on the borders, too, government officials must balance competing desires for openness and effectiveness. She said she could not list the reasons for which an individual could be taken aside for a secondary interrogation out of concern for national security.

However, she said individuals should feel free to ask their interviewer why they were taken aside after the process is complete.

She pointed out that her agency is trying to make it clear to travelers that they always have the right to ask to see a supervisor if they feel they are being treated unfairly.

Tilghman attributed some of the recent problems to the complexity of the process.

"I think what you're seeing is that this is not a single agency process," Tilghman said. "What I have been told by knowledgeable people is that part of the reason that this seems so difficult and nontransparent is because it involves DHS, CIA, FBI, State and Justice, and they are not even on a common computer system."

As for Shonnar and Takloo-Bighash, both left the country over winter break and returned without incident.