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The 2009 Open Doors Report which is the most important and most comprehensive report on international student numbers at American colleges and Universities shows that record numbers of international students are studying in US institutions of higher education. The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) say that their Open Doors Policy has been effective in securing the nations borders while at the same time attracting large number of overseas students to the US.
"More secure borders and ongoing openness are not mutually exclusive, and I think the success the United States is experiencing in attracting students from around the world proves this point," said Lou Farrell, Director of the Student Exchange and Visitor Program (SEVP) within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "The partnership ICE has developed with the academic community has been critical to our efforts, and we will need to maintain that partnership as our system continues to evolve."
There has been significant growth in overseas student numbers over the last three years. The last time that there was such a rate of growth in student numbers was in 1980. There are now over 670,000 overseas students in the US.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) developed and introduced the web-based Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) in 2003 which is a system for managing records of students, exchange visitors and dependents during their time in the US. This has enabled ICE to keep up to date on what the record numbers of international students are actually doing in the US.
