The College Fix

As the dust settles from the recent Boston Marathon bombings, which left three dead, scores wounded, and a nation in shock – at least one senator is questioning whether the country’s student visa system should be suspended and reviewed.

One of the Boston bomber suspects is a permanent U.S. resident, while the other is a naturalized citizen. They were from the Chechen Republic in Russia.

With that, Sen. Rand Paul sent a letter Monday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that urged him to include looking into the student visa program, among other national security concerns, as the ongoing immigration reform debate unfolds in Washington.

“The facts emerging in the Boston Marathon bombing have exposed a weakness in our current system,” Paul wrote. “Do we need to take a hard look at student visas? Should we suspend student visas, or at least those from high-risk areas, pending an investigation into the national security implications of this program?”

“We should not proceed until we understand the specific failures of our immigration system. Why did the current system allow two individuals to immigrate to the United States from the Chechen Republic in Russia, an area known as a hotbed of Islamic extremism, who then committed acts of terrorism? Were there any safeguards? Could this have been prevented? Does the immigration reform before us address this?”

Meanwhile, near Boston over the weekend, two foreign students were arrested for allegedly violating their student visas; they are from Kazakhstan and may have known the brothers accused of bombing, the Boston Globe reported.

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