Homeland Security changes procedures on student visas

WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security Department has ordered border agents to verify that every international student who arrives in the United States has a valid student visa, according to an internal memorandum obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The new procedure is the government's first security change directly related to the Boston bombings.

The order from a senior official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection was circulated Thursday and came one day after the Obama administration acknowledged that a student from Kazakhstan accused of hiding evidence for one of the Boston bombing suspects was allowed to return to the United States without a valid student visa.

Azamat Tazhayakov's visa had been terminated when he arrived in New York on Jan. 20. But the border agent in the airport did not have access to the information in the Homeland Security Department's Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, called SEVIS.

Under existing procedures, border agents could verify a student's status in SEVIS only when the person was referred to a second officer for additional inspection or questioning.

Under the new procedures, all border agents were expected to be able to access SEVIS by next week. They will verify a student's visa status before the person arrives in the United States using information provided in flight manifests. If that information is unavailable, border agents will check the visa status manually.

-- AP