Responding to public outcry about sexual abuse of foreign students in the United States, the Bush administration is today proposing new rules to screen host families and regulate agencies that sponsor some 28,000 high school exchange students, almost all minors, every year.
Although foreign students have been coming to the United States under formal exchange programs for more than a half-century, no sponsor has been required to keep figures on sexual abuse or report molestation cases to the federal government. Now they will.
Yet the rules could not have prevented three cases of abuse now in the courts.
Gaithersburg High School biology teacher Andrew Powers sneaked into the bedroom of the 17-year-old German girl living with his family in the middle of the night last December and tried to get her to perform oral sex, according to a police affidavit. When his wife wasn't home, Powers also "frequently" roamed the house naked in front of the student, the affidavit adds. Powers, who has resigned, is to be sentenced next week after pleading guilty to second-degree assault and fourth-degree sexual offenses. His attorney declined to comment.
The host father of a 16-year-old German girl in Plainwell, Mich., was charged in April with installing hidden cameras in her bedroom, first under her blankets, then in a dollhouse, to capture her naked. Dale Lacoss will be sentenced this month after pleading guilty to distributing the image of an unclothed person and possession of child sexually abusive material.
And this week, the coordinator for foreign exchange students in Sherwood, Ark., was charged with first-degree sexual assault for rape of three male European exchange students over the past year. In one case, during his wife's absence, Doyle Meyer Jr. held a slumber party for students, provided them with alcohol and then masturbated one of the minors against his will, according to the police affidavit. The student was reluctant to file charges until he heard about others Meyer allegedly molested.
Meyer could not be reached for comment.
Even under the new vetting procedures, the cases in Maryland, Michigan and Arkansas would not have been averted because the abusers had no criminal record and were not on the national offenders registry. And in the Gaithersburg case, Powers had passed a criminal background screening by the Montgomery County school system.
Foreign students are among the most vulnerable minors because they usually do not know U.S. laws, are unfamiliar with customs, are dependent on host families or sponsors, don't know what to do when abused or are afraid to act, according to Lt. Frank Baker of the Allegan County Sheriff's Office, who has been involved in the Michigan case.
"For a predator, this is the ideal situation," Baker said.
The proposed rules published today in the Federal Register, which are likely to go into effect after 30 days of public comment, come as the Bush administration pushes student exchanges as a centerpiece of its diplomatic outreach to improve the U.S. image abroad.
"I'm a huge proponent of exchanges, student exchanges, cultural exchanges, university exchanges. We talk a lot about public diplomacy," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a meeting with her staff days after taking over in January. "It's extremely important that we get our message out, but it's also the case that we should not have a monologue with other people. It has to be a conversation, and you can't do that without exchanges and openness."
