A petition that has circulated around the country is now at the UA, and the Graduate and Professional Student Council wants students, regents, and administrators to sign it.

A majority of the Graduate and Professional Student Council of the UA voted a time period of two weeks to sponsor and sign a national academic visa reform petition, said Jani Radebaugh, president of GPSC.

The petition was originated in response to visa fee increases and extensive applications. It asks the U.S. government to take a closer look at how the visa program is working for both graduates and undergraduates.

Graduate councils around the country have signed the document, which was originated at Yale University by the Graduate Employees and Students Organization. Two weeks ago the

petition was presented in Washington during the Immigrant Worker Freedom Rides and again at a rally in Queens, New York on Oct. 4.

Originally, there was some hesitation among the medical school about signing the petition, said Jason Johnson, a graduate student and GPSC representative from the College of Medicine.

"The med students equated making the process easier and more streamlined with lessened security," Johnson said.

But everyone agreed to sign it because the petition does not call for a decrease in security measures, Johnson said.

The petition is more focused on making life easier for students trying to obtain their visas to study who have no threat to the American people, said Chang-hua Zhang, a graduate student in the physics department.

GPSC members will rewrite the document to apply specifically to UA student needs. Radebaugh said that the original writers of the document focused on issues that are not a major problem at the UA.

The petition asks university presidents to increase support for English as a Second Language training, housing, subsidies, and dependent health care, but with budget cuts, these requests are not feasible, Radebaugh said.

"Some comments directly mention students from 'China and other areas' and we feel that our own version of the petition would include all international students," she said.

The government's requirement that students must leave the United States in order to renew visas worries students, Radebaugh said.

They are "concerned that they will not be able to get back in the country once they leave," said Radebaugh.

Radebaugh cited an example involving a female Chinese student who was forced to stay home for an entire semester because she could not renew her visa.

Also, many students have problems attending international conferences because it is so hard to get back into the country.

Zhang said that his supervisor wanted him to go to an event in Spain. This proved difficult when the International Affairs Office advised him that he would have to go back to China to renew his visa.

The neurology department at the UA attends an international conference held in Barcelona, South Africa, and England depending on the year. Students are hesitant to attend.

"If you leave America you may get stuck [in that other country]," said Johnson.

"It's important to have good homeland security," Radebaugh said. But the government needs to be "careful not to sacrifice the benefits of having international students."

"I definitely support the petition," Zhang said. "It's very understandable that the government should prevent bad things from happening."

But he said that there should be a more reasonable way to admit people into the country.

"Since 9/11 the U.S. government has created obstacles to grad students around the world," said UA President Peter Likins.

Johnson said he has heard stories about students having to wait in line for their visas for an entire day with some sleeping in the offices.

Last year there were a total of 3,011 international students at the UA. This year, that number has dropped to 2,901 international students, according to the Office of International Affairs.

The petition can be found at: http://www.petitiononline.com/visa2003/petition.html.