The events of Sept. 11 have forced our nation to submit to a lot of things that we don’t want to do or feel uncomfortable about. We are searched endlessly at airports, undergo more extensive background searches and our government can pry into our private e-mail accounts when the occasion arises.

For our nation’s visitors, things haven’t been any easier. Starting in November, foreign nationals and citizens of 20 countries have been herded into the nearest Immigration and Naturalization Service office to be fingerprinted and interviewed, granted that they still have all the paperwork from when they arrived in the country. If not, they will be jailed temporarily until any confusion has been cleared up. And this isn’t a one-time deal. They will have to do this every year while they are in the United States.

Normally, the INS’s actions would be called excessive. But after it was revealed that the majority of the Sept. 11 hijackers were in the United States under expired visas, it shed light on the disorganized U.S. immigration office. The tracking that’s being done on the international students at our campus and all across the United States is one of the many unfortunate, yet necessary, steps that need to be taken in order to correct and refine the INS’s actions and to make our country safe again.

But the tracking system is flawed.

For example, the countries on the list seem to have been chosen because of political preference. The majority of the countries on the list are located near or in the Middle East, yet North Korea is included. It seems that North Korea is included only because of our currently sour relations. So if France, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, stands firm in its refusal to back the United States in a war against Iraq and starts flaunting its nuclear power, will the INS be hounding visitors from France?

Also, there are several Arab countries on the list that are classified as “friendly” to the United States, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar (where many of our servicemen are stationed). Why aren’t other countries, such as Egypt, on the list? Although it is classified as “friendly” to the United States, Egypt was the home of supposed Sept. 11 ring leader Mohamed Atta.

Why not include Indonesia, which has the highest Muslim population in the world?

Why aren’t women asked to register with the government? Women are fully capable of being terrorists, which has been proved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with several females taking their lives in a suicide bombing to make a statement. It seems as if our government is overlooking this. If the INS is going to require one group of people to register and be watched from afar, it should make the same requirements for all of our visitors.

Editorial Board: Cavan Reagan, Amber Billings, Ayrel Clark, Charlie Weaver