Foreign Student Advisory
Issued by the Committee of Radical Attorneys (USA)
January 11, 2003

All students should seek educational environments that are non-repressive and non-racist.

All students and scholars should be advised before contracting to attend educational institutions in the United States that, currently, colleges and universities are compelled by the U.S. government to comply with new laws and executive orders which place students and scholars who attend U.S. educational institutions in peril.

Prospective foreign students should be advised:

1. You may be subjected to arrest and indefinite detention, without probable cause, without right to legal counsel, or due process of law.

2. You will be racially profiled by immigration and law enforcement officials, particularly if your origins are Southwest Asian or North African--even if you were born in the U.S. (citizen) or a legal resident (non-citizen).

3. U.S. colleges and universities are now required to turn over personal data on foreign students to federal law enforcement agencies. This information includes academic standing, on-campus disciplinary actions (including reports of student participation in protected free speech activities), financial reports on students and their dependents,off-campus employment and the number of course hours and subjects studied. This information will be reported to federal law enforcement authorities and compiled in a national computer data bank known as SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visa Information Service). In short, foreign students and scholars will be tracked by law enforcement officials, and treated as suspects to crimes or immigration violations yet to be named.

4. You may be compelled, on pain of deportation, to inform on the political and/or religious thoughts and activities of fellow students.

Before contracting to attend any college or university in the United States at this time, prospective foreign students should:

A. Carefully weigh whether the educational resources in the United States at this time are more valuable than your civil liberties and freedom from race-driven victimization.

B. Make a criterion for the selection of a specific U.S. educational institution the publicly stated measures that a college or university pledges to take to protect its foreign students from federally mandated racial profiling, violation of privacy and subjection to capricious arrest and detention.

If you wish to attend an educational institution in the U.S. under the assumption that you will be availing yourself of a liberal and non-repressive learning atmosphere, then that asumption is false.


Be advised.

Please visit:  http://www.shamon.com/cora for details and contact information.

Committee of Radical Attorneys
January 11, 2003