Uncle Sam needs Rammy Barbari. A 20-year-old senior at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), he’s smart, goal-oriented and sees for himself a future in the United States government, possibly as an intelligence agent. And he’s Arab-American.

There is still a shortage of men and women like Barbari taking their Arabic language skills into intelligence, diplomacy and other national security roles throughout the federal government, despite a push after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to bring them on board.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are hoping to attract college students like Barbari, who already have a minimum level of proficiency in Arabic, and prep them for government jobs where there is still a desperate need for their abilities. They are doing this through the National Security Internship, a tiny effort with big plans for the future.

“I think it’s critical and will remain absolutely critical,” Barbari said of the program, which graduated 21 interns for its inaugural session last summer and is now sifting through more than 200 applicants for the 2009 session.

Barbari—who was born and raised in Alexandria, Va., just outside the nation’s capital—is the son of Palestinian immigrants who came to the country in the late 1960s. He said he was a likely candidate for the program, which is open to undergraduate and graduate students who can pass a basic Arabic proficiency test and can clear the FBI background check. He had engaged in previous government internships, including one at the Department of Justice, and has traveled to Jordan and Egypt, where, he said, he was able to enhance his Arabic skills.

He sees himself in intelligence, but is unsure if he will stay with the military after VMI. He wants to go to law school. His mentor, George Selim, who works in the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (OCRCL) at DHS, encouraged Barbari to apply for the new DHS-FBI internship. Beyond a stepping-stone to his own career, Barbari thinks it’s a federal program long overdue.

“The point of the program is to produce new leaders in a 9/11 world who have an overall cultural understanding,” including the ability to analyze and translate data in foreign languages, said Barbari. “I think it’s absolutely necessary.”

Making a difference

Dan Sutherland, an officer with OCRCL, which runs the internship from the DHS side, called the internship “an enormous success beyond our expectations.” Throughout the nine-week “full (language) immersion” program, students get intensive language training as well as hands-on experience, like doing translations and other language-oriented work with the FBI, and analyzing intelligence for DHS. Each student is given a top-secret clearance upon arrival.

Sutherland said the program more than utilized the students’ language skills, while offering them a chance to work together in the future: Six out of the nine who worked specifically with DHS were offered part time positions and job opportunities for the following summer.

He pointed out that DHS has been trying to make inroads into the Arab-American community since the agency’s inception. Trust has always been an issue, he told HSToday, but he thinks they’re getting there.

“There is a real interest on the part of the community to understand the counter-terrorism mission and to roll up their sleeves and help,” Sutherland insisted. “They’ve been looking for ways to contribute to their government, and this is one of those ways they can do that.”

Of course not every participant in the 2008 session was Arab-American, nor is the program’s solitary mission to bridge gaps in cultural understanding. There has been a real scarcity of truly proficient Arabic speakers in government—whether in intelligence, the military or the State Department’s Foreign Service ranks—despite millions of dollars and tons of effort by academia and a big recruitment wave after 9/11.

“There is obviously a lot more to do,” said Sutherland. “Our program is humble—it’s 20 to 30 students—but we hope it can make a difference.”