To ensure that legitimate foreign students can arrive in the United States on time for the fall term, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is taking extra measures this week to forestall potential problems with its database to track the students. The actions, which include opening a call center and putting extra staff members at major airports, are last-minute preparations for an August 1 deadline by which American colleges must create records in the database for every foreign student.

The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- a branch of the Homeland Security Department that oversees the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or Sevis -- sent colleges an announcement (requires Adobe Reader, available free) on Monday describing the new efforts. They are temporary, one-time accommodations to ease the way for students who, through no fault of their own, lack either Sevis documents or records.

The federal government created Sevis in 2001 to scrutinize foreign visitors more closely in the hopes of weeding out potential terrorists. After midnight on August 1, international students will be admitted to the United States only if they have I-20 entry documents issued through Sevis. The U.S. Department of State requires students to get the forms from their colleges and file them with applications for student visas. Colleges are expected to record all of their students in the system or face penalties from the government, and foreign students in the United States without proper Sevis records can be punished and deported.

This week's efforts are not an exception to, amnesty from, or a waiver of the August 1 deadline, said Victor X. Cerda, chief of staff at the enforcement bureau. The government is working with colleges to see where immigration officials can exercise discretion to admit students. "We have to retain a level of security at ports of entry," he said. "We have to make sure they are bona fide students."

The bureau informed institutions this week of the new efforts, and college officials were pleased at the news. The department has "done exactly what any responsible agency would do," said Victor C. Johnson, associate executive director of Nafsa: Association of International Educators.

But the actions also reflect the government's acknowledgment that neither it nor colleges will be completely ready for the August 1 deadline, said J. Greg Leonard, vice president for research and marketing at Newfront Software, a company that sells software that colleges can use to gain access to Sevis.

Sevis has been plagued by technical glitches from the start, although colleges say its reliability has improved recently. The enforcement bureau is making available extra technical-support personnel for the coming transition. In addition, not every college will be registered in the system by the deadline, and even those that are will not have all of their foreign students entered. As of late July, the system had more than one million out of an expected 1.2 million records, and more than 5,800 of roughly 7,400 institutions that enroll foreign students had registered.

Because the majority of records are already in the system, this week's initiative will affect only a small percentage of foreign students, Mr. Johnson said. But the number is still likely to run into the thousands.

According to the memorandum, the bureau is sending written instructions this week to immigration inspectors at all U.S. ports of entry. The instructions will guide the inspectors on how to handle situations other than when an institution is registered in Sevis and a foreign student has both a record in Sevis and a Sevis I-20.

On Friday, the bureau expects to open a call center that inspectors can use when they have questions. The center will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Through it, inspectors will be able to contact colleges to verify information used to decide whether to grant entry. If a college's international-student officer cannot be reached in a short time, inspectors may allow some students to enter on a temporary basis, but give them 30 days to submit the necessary documents.

The bureau is also sending immigration experts to help out at airports in the eight cities through which more than 70 percent of foreign students enter the country: Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Washington. The additional personnel will come from the enforcement bureau as well as the Bureau of Customs and Border Patrol and the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, two other branches of the department.

The new efforts do not apply to foreign students who are coming to the United States for the first time, said Garrison K. Courtney, a spokesman for the enforcement bureau. The efforts apply only to returning students who already have visas to enter the country and need the necessary Sevis records and documents.