Student visasDHS instructs border agents to verify all international student visas
DHS has sent a direct order to its Border Agents telling them that, “effective immediately,” they must verify that every international student who arrives in the United States has a valid student visa The student visa of Azamat Tazhayakov, one of the two Kazakh students charged with trying to destroy evidence related to the Boston Marathon bombing, was terminated before he arrived in New York on 20 January, but the border agent in the airport did not have access to DHS Department’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.
DHS has sent a direct order to its Border Agents telling them that, “effective immediately,” they must verify that every international student who arrives in the United States has a valid student visa.
CBS reports that an internal memo obtained by the AP shows that the order came from David Murphy, a senior official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The memo was sent out just one day after it has emerged that one of the two students from Kazakhstan charged with destroying a Boston Marathon bombing-related evidence was allowed to return to the United States in January with an invalid student visa.
The student visa of Azamat Tazhayakov was terminated before he arrived in New York on 20 January, but the border agent in the airport did not have access to DHS Department’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.
Tazhayakov and another Kazakh student were arrested earlier on federal charges of obstruction of justice and are being accused of trying to get rid of a backpack owned by bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, which contained empty fireworks casings. A third student, a U.S. citizen, was arrested and is accused of lying to authorities.
Peter Boogaard, DHS spokesman, said earlier this week that the government was working to fix the problem.
