Eventually, foreign students will be required to present the card whenever they apply for a job or travel out of the country.

Although critics fear potential Orwellian implications, Malin cautions that the program is still in its infancy.

"They reserve the right to make dramatic changes based on how the pilot program goes," he says.

Moreover, events such as "having a beer illegally or anything like that" will not be reported to the INS, he says.

'Out of Status'

Other provisions of the new law may have a more immediate impact on non-residents.

The law imposes tough new penalties for being "out of status" for more than six months.

A foreign national is out of status if, for example, she leaves school for a term and returns to finish the rest of her years at the College, finding that her temporary student visa has expired.

An individual out of status for six months would be banished from the country for three years, and a visa expired for more than a year would net a 10-year banishment.

Currently, about five Harvard students each year find themselves temporarily out of status, said Parker McC. Emerson, an HIO adviser to students and scholars.

And since the new law would require the college to report that information to the INS, the HIO would be placed in the sticky role of both reporting the infraction--and advising the student on his or her next course of action.

Malin said the office is marshaling its resources to inform Harvard's international community of the new regulations.

The HIO Web site warns students: "We do not have any assurance from the U.S. government that students who have been too busy to maintain their status will be exempted from these very punitive measures."

Some international students say they fear that the new law will further define a role for the HIO that the office does not wish to assume.

"For the average student, the international office is a layer of bureaucracy we need to deal with do things," says Zimran D. Ahmed '98, a native of Pakistan.