-
Naturalization Act
The Naturalization Act provided the first rules to be followed by the United States in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to immigrants who were free white persons. It excluded American Indians, slaves, free blacks and later Asians. -
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens who were deemed dangerous or who were from a hostile nation and criminalized making false statements that were critical of the federal government -
Steerage Act
It was the first law in the United States regulating the conditions of transportation used by people arriving and departing by sea. -
The Carriage of Passengers Act
The Carriage of Passengers Act recognized a separate category for temporary immigrants, and the Chinese Exclusion Act, that excluded all Chinese skilled and unskilled laborers, carved out an exception for students. -
Page Act
The Page Act was the first restrictive federal immigration law and prohibited the entry of immigrants considered "undesirable." The law classified as "undesirable" any individual from Asia who was coming to America to be a forced laborer and all people considered to be convicts in their own country. -
The Institute of International Education
The Institute of International Education was formed to protect and promote the interests of international students and exchange visitors. It is a 501 organization which focuses on International Student Exchange and Aid, Foreign Affairs, and International Peace and Security. -
Emergency Quota Act
The Emergency Quota Act added two new features to American immigration law: numerical limits on immigration and the use of a quota system for establishing those limits. -
Immigration Act
The Immigration Act limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States -
World Trade Center Bombing
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was a truck bomb below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. In the aftermath of this incident, the student visa came under increased scrutiny when it was discovered that Eyad Ismoil, one of the terrorists involved was in the United States on an expired student visa. -
Immigration and Nationality Act
The Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA, governs immigration to and citizenship in the United States. The Act has been amended many times over the years, but is still the basic body of immigration law. -
Patriot Act
The Patriot Act further increased scrutiny of student visas, increasing the momentum in favor of the adoption of SEVIS. This was partly because of the fact that one of the attackers, Hani Hanjour, had come to the United States on a student visa. -
Interagency Panel on Advanced Science and Security (IPASS)
The original intent of IPASS was to help with the evaluation of suspicious visa applications in subjects that had implications for national security. -
Technology Alert List (TAL)
This list contains various types of technologies and domains of study that were particularly sensitive, whereby applicants for student visas in those domains of study received additional scrutiny. In addition it included a list of designated State Sponsors of Terrorism, countries from which visa applicants received additional scrutiny. -
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (or ICE) is a U.S. federal government law enforcement agency under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). ICE has two primary components: Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
