5/4/2005 

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is now the primary agency responsible for student-related issues. ICE issued a memo dated recently addressing two issues of importance to students. The first was a routine reminder to Designated School Officials (DSOs) of the deadline for reporting new students in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), as well as updating records during the school year. The second portion is a cause for concern since it requires the student to apply for reinstatement of student status for an error or omission on the part of the DSO. 

Essentially, the Memo states that if the DSO fails to properly update records, the student's record will be cancelled or otherwise not correctly reflect the foreign national as a student, due to certain built-in functions of the SEVIS program. If this occurs, the error cannot just be corrected as a "data fix." Instead, the student will have to apply for reinstatement of the student status. This places a heavy burden and substantial risk on the student as the result of a DSO mistake, which in most cases is beyond the student's control. 

The deadline for registering new students in initial student status is within 30 days after the "program start date." The DSOs must update all other student records each term. The deadline for reporting the registration of a continuing student is 30 days after the "next session starting date." These deadlines are vital. If the DSO does not make the needed entries in a timely manner, the SEVIS system will cancel, terminate, or "complete" the student's record automatically.

As clarified in the Memo, in the event that the DSO makes a mistake in properly or timely updating a student's record, this cannot be fixed under the SEVIS system. SEVIS has a system available for "data fixes," but this type of error is not included in the items that can be fixed in that manner. The affected student would have to request reinstatement, as the termination from SEVIS, even if prompted by an error, would create an out-of-status situation.

In light of this rather stringent and unforgiving approach, students need to make sure that their DSOs have taken care of the required updates. Schools need to be careful in selecting and training their DSOs. DSOs need to be extraordinarily careful about these deadlines. That being said, human beings are just that: human. Mistakes happen, and there should be some thought given to devising a less bureaucratic and burdensome manner to resolve such mistakes.