Ahmed sees the office's role as primarily "functional," helping foreign students with tax forms and travel. But HIO, Ahmed says, "would rather be a resource for students."

"If they become deputies [for the INS], this will shift them to even more of a bureaucracy," he says.

Nationwide Concern

The federal government has made it clear that educational institutions like Harvard will be forced to work closely with government agencies.

"The success of this project will depend upon continual cooperation and communication between the government and the participating institutions and programs," cautions the INS in a news release about CIRPRIS.

But educators across the country are concerned about the program's implications.

In the magazine International Educator, Gary Althen, director of the Office of International Students at the University of Iowa, writes that "the fundamental question about CIPRIS is not whether its technological approach to 'regulating' students and scholars will work, but whether it ought even to be attempted.

"Foreign student advisers who are partners with the INS are not going to be partners with the foreign students and scholars on their campuses," Althen writes.

INS Bureaucracy

The concern over the new immigration laws is about immigration reform.

As the agency responsible for immigration matters, the INS has come under intense scrutiny. Congressional critics say the agency is not prepared to handle increasing waves of immigrants, both legal and undocumented.

Some Harvard students say they have had difficulties with INS bureaucracy.

Nienke C. Grossman '99, a U.S. resident since she was four years old, applied last semester through the Harvard-Radcliffe College Democrats for a summer internship with the Environmental Protection Agency.

But Grossman was turned down at the last minute because she was not yet a citizen. Since her parents were not themselves U.S. citizens, Grossman had to wait until she was 18 to begin the citizenship process. "If [the application process] had gone according to schedule, I would have been able to work at the EPA," she says.

But the INS lost her full application, including fingerprints and fee, once, misplaced her fingerprints two additional times, and lost her fee alone once more, Grossman says.