Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., has caused a stir across the country after his controversial comments about international students from "terrorist-sponsored" countries studying in the United States.

Among those raising concerns with the governor's comments were several University of Wisconsin employees.

"They've been fine students," Larry Meiller, UW life sciences communications professor, said of the international students studying in Madison. "They've had to put up with a lot to get here and they've had to put up with a lot to stay here and I think his comments are out of line."

Romney, widely acknowledged as a potential 2008 presidential candidate, made the comments as part of a speech on domestic security to the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing political think tank based out of Washington, D.C.

"I'm talking about … tracking students, visitors, we have 120 colleges and universities in Massachusetts, roughly, how many individuals are coming to our state and going to those institutions who have come from terrorist sponsored states?" Romney said. "Do we know where they are? Are we tracking them?"

UW history professor David McDonald said Romney's comments amount to "cheap-shot xenophobia" but unfortunately, McDonald added, xenophobia is a "pretty strong current in America."

"He's playing to the bleachers, and the bleachers vote, and the bleachers don't like foreigners, and it's as simple as that. … You mask it in the potential terrorist thing," McDonald said. "Romney is just playing to a knee-jerk reaction, and it works."

In any event, Meiller said stringent measures are already in place to monitor international students.

"It's a financial hardship to begin with, and then they're vetted pretty carefully," Meiller said. "And so once they're here they have to put up with quite a bit too in terms of letting people know where they are [and] what they're doing."

Sandra Arfa, director of the UW English as a Second Language program, agreed with Meiller and said particularly since Sep. 11, 2001, international students have been under close surveillance.

"Oh my goodness, it seems like they're quite monitored now," Arfa said about Romney's comments. "If you change your program or you change your residence or you change anything you have to register that."

When asked to comment on the speech, the governor's office refused comment.

One source within the governor's office however, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Romney's comment about international students was just one in a series of questions.

"He's not proposing anything new, or proposing doing anything differently outside the scope of what already exists," the source said, adding the governor's office refused comment because "the speech speaks for itself."

According to Arfa, any efforts to increase the surveillance of international students are misdirected attempts to increase homeland security.

"It isn't our international students who cause the trouble anyway," she said. "I mean they come to study and they're an asset, if anything."

McDonald also said investing additional resources and continuing to limit the privacy of international college students misses the real areas of vulnerability.

"How many of the [terrorists] involved in Sept. 11 were at real universities as opposed to fly-by-night schools or low-tech academies?" McDonald said.