Federal law and regulation require the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) to monitor schools and F and M students by collecting data and conducting visits to schools. SEVP personnel may visit a school’s campus for a variety of reasons. To clarify these types of visits for our stakeholders, below are the instances when schools may receive a visit from SEVP.

Visits from Field Representatives

Field representatives conduct two types of visits: site visits and school visits.

Site visits are conducted when a school applies for initial certification and any time a school is requesting to add a new location to its SEVP certification. These visits are always scheduled with school officials.

School visits are conducted on a regular basis by field representatives as part of their daily duties. These visits are scheduled with designated school officials the vast majority of the time. The visits may be unscheduled if a school has been nonresponsive to correspondence from a field representative or if they have failed to have a requested meeting with a field representative for an inordinate amount of time.

Other SEVP Visits

SEVP may also perform unscheduled out-of-cycle reviews by visiting certified schools to ensure ongoing compliance. A school cannot decline these site visits, which may be announced or unannounced, if it wants to continue its SEVP certification.

For more information about when SEVP visits a school, please refer to the ICE Sensitive Locations Policy Statement—as SEVP falls under ICE. If you have a case-specific question about SEVP visiting your school, please contact the SEVP Response Center.