Visa revocation of student from Pakistan called unfair

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Thursday, Dec. 20, 2001 | 11:18 a.m.

A Pakistani man had his student visa revoked in Las Vegas last week in a case immigration experts say is unfair and may set a precedent, making it harder for thousands of foreign students to enter the United States.

Najeeb-Ul-Hasnain, 19, from Karachi, Pakistan, entered the United States Nov. 4 at McCarran International Airport with a student visa, which allowed him to study in Texas beginning in January. He stopped in Nevada to visit family living north of Las Vegas.

But Immigration and Naturalization Service officials at the airport took him aside for questioning, thus beginning five weeks of waiting and further questioning that ended Dec. 12, when the INS informed him through a lawyer that his visa was canceled.

The reason, he was told, was that he has a sister in New York whose visa has expired.

"They said, if (my) sister stayed on, then (I am) likely to stay on too," Hasnain said, adding that now he must leave the country and is scheduled to depart Dec. 30.

But immigration experts question the basis for the INS decision, and they say the action against Hasnain adds credence to the claim that immigration laws are being unfairly enforced after Sept. 11.

"This is completely outrageous," said attorney Adam Green, former chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association's committee on foreign students.

"The idea that a family member being out of status would somehow rub off on him and make him inadmissible is unheard of.

"What's more, there may be thousands of foreign students who are otherwise law-abiding and have family members with technical violations of immigration law that could be caught up in a similar scenario if this is how the INS is operating after Sept. 11," he said.

The case comes on the heels of last week's arrest by San Diego immigration officials of 10 Middle Easterners who violated the terms of their student visas. An official said the arrest was part of a sweep targeting eight Middle Eastern countries, including Pakistan.

But INS spokeswoman Eyleen Schmidt said the agency is not focusing on these countries as a matter of policy and instead is pursuing broader objectives.

"Airport immigration inspectors nationwide are looking closer at people entering the country in general, as the agency tries to find persons who are at risk of violating the terms of their visas -- including staying in the country after the visas expire," said Schmidt.

"Just because you have a visa approved by the State Department doesn't mean you are guaranteed entry into the country, and one factor we consider is whether you have family members who have overstayed their visas."

A case involving a student visa being revoked because of a family member's immigration status is unusual, Schmidt said, who also noted that the Bush administration has directed the INS to give more scrutiny to student visas since Sept. 11.

"One thing is certain -- you can expect to see more of this sort of thing," she said.

However, the credibility of the INS could be hurt by actions such as the one taken against Hasnain because there seems to be no basis for the decision grounded in law, said Mark Van Der Hout, former president of the National Lawyers Guild.

"They should be investigating people who had something to do with the terrorist acts of Sept. 11, not students like this. They wouldn't be making this decision if he was from Great Britain."

Hasnain said the INS officials never asked him about terrorism. The decision to revoke his visa caught him by surprise.

"I couldn't believe it when they told me that I couldn't live out my dreams and build a career here," said Hasnain. "This has all happened so fast, and I really don't understand why."

During the first five weeks Hasnain was in Nevada, he returned twice to the INS office at McCarran Airport for interviews. He was never detained and stayed with his relatives between interviews.

"Each time I thought the officials would tell me everything was all right. They checked out the people who sponsored my visa, the college, the American Embassy in Islamabad (Pakistan) -- everything."

During his second interview on Nov. 16, he mentioned his 33-year-old sister in New York. He said he was out of contact with her and did not know her immigration status.

After three weeks more of not receiving an answer from the INS, he hired a lawyer on Dec. 10.

But on Dec. 12, his hopes of studying computer sciences at Collin Community College in Plano, Texas -- the same college where a boyhood friend of his is already studying computer science -- were dashed. His lawyer, who asked not to be identified, told him his visa had been revoked.

A Pakistani consular official said at least 225 Pakistani citizens have been detained nationwide since Sept. 11 and that no cases based on the immigration status of a person's relative have been reported.

"In normal circumstances, before Sept. 11, immigration officials wouldn't even investigate the relatives living in the United States of a person with a student visa," the official said.

"I've never seen anything like this in 10 years of consular work," said the official, who also did not want to be identified.

Hasnain said the worst thing about his case is not only that he must leave the country on Dec. 30, but that having his visa revoked by United States could affect the possibility of applying for future visas in Canada or Great Britain.

"For now, my future is worthless," he said.