Speech #930269106

First. let me explain the situation. There are approximately 170.000 foreign students in the United States. Of these. 20.000 have immigrant visas. and 62 percent of the remaining 150.000 have grants. scholarships. or ample funds from home to pay for their entire education. That leaves 57.000. of which only 17.000 are reported as actually applying for work permits each year. If one divided that figure by the number of colleges in this country. about 2.500. the resulting amount of foreign students per campus that might be taking jobs away from American students is very small. If this policy change was encouraged by a desire to place stricter controls on illegal aliens. which has been hinted at by various individuals. the tactics chosen were a little misguided. The announcement was not made until late April. giving the foreign students no warning before summer. These students have come to the United States with the expectation of working during the summer months to help finance their education. They planned to do so this summer. Now. many of them are being refused work permits and have no money to support themselves or to continue their education. I have lists of names on my desk of foreign students that have borrowed from all their relatives just to come to the United States to get a good education. They have nowhere to turn. they are ashamed to go home without a degree or money to repay their debts. and they cannot find work here. Many will turn to working illegally. out of need for funds. or they will try to take all the school campus jobs that require no work permits. In direct contradiction to this new policy. the State Department is sponsoring a summer work program that brings in about 5.000 foreign students to work and travel in the United States for 4 months. Thus. one Federal department is taking jobs away from foreign students and another is handing them out to foreign students that are not even using our educational institutions during the year.