WASHINGTON, April 9: The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has begun implementing rule changes governing an alien’s ability to undertake a course of study and proposing significant changes to the rules applying to the period of time visitors are permitted to remain in the US.

Instead of six-month visit visas routinely given before Sept 11, visitors will be allowed to stay here only for one month or will have to convince the visa-issuing authorities that their visit necessitates a longer stay.

Foreign nationals who wish to study here will have to obtain student visas before starting classes unlike the previous practice when they could enrol in schools and universities while holding tourist or business visas and then apply for a change to student status.

The change, it is claimed, ensures that those aliens seeking to remain in the United States in student status will have received the appropriate security checks before beginning a course of study.

Foreigners ordered to be deported must surrender to authorities 30 days after the deportation order. Aliens disregarding this will be prohibited from acquiring future immigration benefits. Many Pakistanis were ordered to de deported after 1985, and some may still be missing. Following Sept 11, about 300 Pakistani citizens were rounded up, and of these all but 30 or 40 have either been deported or have left voluntarily.

The changes, reported previously in Dawn, were formally announced by the INS on Monday. These are the most far-reaching made in visa rules in decades, and they do not need Congressional approval for implementation.