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U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Trade and Tourism Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce, Trade and Tourism Testimony of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services Tony Edson March 20, 2007 10:00 a.m. ____________ Chairman Dorgan, Ranking Member DeMint, distinguished members of the Subcommittee: I appreciate this opportunity to discuss how the Bureau of Consular Affairs is facilitating the travel of legitimate international visitors to the United States while vigilantly protecting U.S. border security for the benefit of Americans and our foreign visitors. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice identified these objectives as part of the mission of the Department of State to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 8, 2007, when she said, “The State Department mission extends to defending our borders and protecting our homeland. We must strive to remain a welcoming nation for tourists, students and businesspeople, while at the same time increasing our security against terrorists and criminals who would exploit our open society to do us harm.” Together with our colleagues in the Departments of Homeland Security and Commerce, we strive constantly to strike the right balance between protecting America’s borders and preserving America’s welcome to international visitors and our fundamental openness to the world, which is the source of our strength and sense of ourselves. Secure Borders, Open Doors The context for all our efforts with regard to visa procedures continues to be September 11, 2001. On that terrible day, when so many Americans and citizens from 90 other nations lost their lives in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, we saw the lengths to which some would go to exploit our open society to do us harm. I think that all people of good will can appreciate that we had to act swiftly and decisively in the aftermath of 9/11 to address our nation’s border security needs. Since 9/11 the Department of State has instituted numerous changes to the way U.S. visas are processed. Some of these changes were instituted by law, others through the interagency process. Together, they legitimately aim to improve the security and integrity of the visa process for the benefit of both U.S. citizens and our international visitors. As we have implemented these changes to strengthen U.S. border security through the visa process, we have worked tirelessly to ensure that our visa process remains the beginning of a positive welcome to legitimate travelers. Security is, and must be, our primary concern, but welcoming international visitors is also a matter of national security. Foreign visitors accounted for $107.4 billion in spending and other economic activity in the United States in 2006, according to Department of Commerce figures. International students contribute an additional $13.5 billion each year to the institutions that they attend and the surrounding communities where they live and study. Beyond the financial benefits that are clearly good for our nation, we need to remain the welcoming country that the United States has traditionally been because of the intangible benefits of such a posture. It is essential that we provide visitors with a positive experience because that experience has incalculable influence in shaping impressions and opinions of our nation and our people. The best advertisement for America is America. Our policy of increasing the national security of the United States while welcoming international visitors is captured by the phrase “Secure Borders and Open Doors.” These objectives are by no means mutually exclusive; in fact, they are mutually reinforcing. We can, and must, achieve both. Meeting these two objectives presents us with management, resource, security, and public diplomacy challenges. We are proceeding aggressively yet deliberately, in order to get the balance right. Implementing the Rice-Chertoff Joint Vision In January 2006, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security launched the “Rice-Chertoff Joint Vision: Secure Borders and Open Doors in the Information Age” as a commitment to striking that balance. This initiative aims to improve: · The efficiency, predictability, and transparency of the visa process;
· The security of U.S. passports and other travel documents; and
· The U.S. government’s ability to screen visa applicants and travelers who arrive at our borders. Our efforts to implement the goals and spirit of the Joint Vision began long before the formal launch of this plan. Over the past year we have made significant progress in advancing these objectives. Let me take this opportunity to highlight some recent achievements. Improvements to the Visa Process We have made changes that enhance the efficiency, predictability, and transparency of the visa process and thereby facilitate international travel. We introduced an electronic visa application form, or EVAF, and mandated its use at consulates worldwide in November 2006. EVAF use reduces data entry errors, eliminates duplicative data entry, and increases the number of applicants whom consular staff can interview daily.
We introduced an Internet-based visa appointment system. All consular posts have placed appointment wait times online on our website at travel.state.gov, so that visa applicants have more information to plan their travel. Since 2001 we have created 570 new consular positions at posts worldwide to handle visa demand. Visa processing delays have been cut dramatically:
- By fully automating the process and streamlining information sharing with other agencies, we have drastically reduced to two weeks in most cases the amount of time it takes to process security clearances. We are constantly working with our interagency partners to reduce this time frame while still meeting our legal obligations in this area.
- We have also established a process for individuals or their legal representatives to inquire through our public inquiries division about the status of clearance requests.
We have responded to suggestions from the business and academic communities and established mechanisms to assist student and business travelers, thus improving the welcome America provides to these key sectors: - All posts have established mechanisms to expedite visa appointments for legitimate business travelers, students, and international exchange visitors. We do not want students to miss the start dates for their planned study, or legitimate business travelers to have to forego a business meeting, because they could not get an appointment.
- A Business Visa Center (BVC) located in the Visa Office explains the visa process to U.S. companies, convention organizers, and others who invite employees or current or prospective business clients to the United States. The BVC handled almost 2,800 requests from American businesses for information and assistance in cases involving over 139,000 business travelers in 2006.
- Many posts have imaginative programs – often organized in conjunction with local branches of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) – to facilitate business and tourist travel. For example, Consulate General Shanghai’s Corporate Visa Program (CVP) with AmCham Shanghai lessens the interview wait time for business applicants – most interviews take place within a week after application materials have been submitted – and establishes effective communication channels between AmCham and the Consulate General. Shanghai processed over 9,600 visas for nearly 500 CVP member companies through its program last year.
These efforts have produced results. We have “turned the corner,” and our metrics are positive across the board. Nonimmigrant visa issuances in FY 2006 rose 8 percent over the previous year, with business/tourist visa issuances increasing by 12 percent. We issued an all-time high of 591,000 student and exchange visitor visas in FY 2006. We have seen increases from every region in the world, but the numbers for some of our key business and travel markets are especially marked. For example, business/tourist visa issuance is up 12 percent for Indian citizens, 16 percent for Chinese, 13 percent for Koreans, and 70 percent for Brazilians. We have put the structures in place to ensure that the visa process is not the daunting ordeal that it is sometimes portrayed to be. Visa applications are up 5 percent worldwide. The growth in demand is explosive in some markets – for example, 17 percent in China and 30 percent in Brazil. Clearly, travelers still seek to come to the United States, and we are helping them get here while still ensuring national security. Secure Travel Documents As part of the promotion of secure travel documents, the first phase of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) – that all travelers arriving in the United States by air present a passport or other approved document – went into effect on January 23. The overwhelming majority of arrivals from destinations that previously did not require a passport did in fact present a passport. DHS facilitated entry for the handful that did not. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reports 99 percent compliance with the passport requirement. This smooth transition was the result of aggressive outreach by the travel industry, foreign countries affected by WHTI legislation, and the Departments of State and Homeland Security, and is an excellent example of how government and the private sector can work together to facilitate international travel. The Department of State began issuing diplomatic e-passports on December 30, 2005, and official e-passports in April 2006. We began issuing e-passports to the public on August 14, 2006. All our domestic passport agencies have been fully converted to issue e-passports. Conversion of the two remaining mega-centers is forthcoming, pending sufficient blank e-passport inventory. We are also aggressively moving forward with the Department of Homeland Security on a “Model Ports of Entry” concept. Our goal is to ensure that international visitors’ positive experience continues from the time they make a visa appointment to the time they pick up their bags at baggage claim. While it does not directly relate to the Rice-Chertoff Joint Initiative, I want to take this opportunity to say a few words about the unprecedented demand by American citizens for U.S. passports. Applications received for the first five months of Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 are 44 percent higher than for the same period last year. Two key factors are driving this increase. January through April is typically the peak passport demand period, as travelers prepare for spring and summer holidays. In addition, the WHTI requirements created a surge in demand which began in November 2006. We see this higher demand as a positive development. Currently, 74 million Americans – approximately one-quarter of the population – are documented with a U.S. passport. As more of our fellow citizens obtain these secure documents, the more secure and efficient our nation’s borders will be. The Department of State is committed to ensuring that Americans will have passports when they need to travel. In anticipation of this high demand for passports, the Department of State hired more than 250 additional passport adjudicators in the past year and will hire an additional 86 this year. This month alone, 49 new passport adjudicators began work. The National Passport Center (NPC) is operating 24 hours a day in three shifts per day; all 16 passport agencies are working overtime to get passports out to applicants as quickly as possible. In April, the Department of State will increase its passport issuance infrastructure with the opening of a “mega-processing” center in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which will have the capacity to produce as many as 10 million passport books annually. Future Enhancements to the Visa Process The Department of Commerce figures show that we experienced the highest number of international arrivals in 2006 since 2000 and project that 2007 international visitor levels, at 52.9 million, will surpass the 2000 record. Those figures are good news, and we welcome them. Yet we are still not satisfied. To continue to meet the demand for visas, to continue to keep our national welcome mat out, and to continue to facilitate legitimate international travel, we want to introduce additional enhancements. We plan to introduce several changes over the next two years. Many of these innovations – on which we have been working for many months – parallel suggestions made by the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board (TTAB), the Discover America Partnership, and others. Please allow me to describe these changes in detail. Reducing Visa Appointment Wait Times For those travelers who require a visa, the wait to get an appointment can impact short-term travel plans. Despite the explosive demand I described earlier, nearly 90 percent of our 219 visa-issuing posts currently have average wait times of 30 days or less, and at a large majority the wait time is less than one week. Many of the overall changes we’ve already introduced to streamline the visa process have helped to keep down wait times. We are employing customized solutions to tackle situations in particular countries with persistent and unacceptably high appointment wait times. In October 2006, for example, we sent a team of experienced current and retired officers on temporary duty to India to help the consulates there process a backlog of appointment requests, reducing wait times from over 100 days to less than 10. Since that effort, appointment wait times have begun to gradually increase again. We view this as a positive sign, indicating that visa applicants who might have in the past been deterred by the appointment wait time are now choosing to apply for visas. A fresh wave of temporary duty support is currently in India assisting posts to manage the continued heavy workload. “Surges” such as we employed in India can be useful in tackling short-term situations, and we may use them in other places. They aren’t a viable long-term solution in places with structurally high visa demand. We need to consider and implement other approaches. Aligning Consular Assets to Meet Demand We must ensure that we have our consular assets appropriately deployed where we need them, so that we can provide consistent, timely, quality consular services to our clientele. After careful analysis of detailed workload figures submitted by posts, and considering other factors that impact workload and productivity, such as the fraud environment and physical plant, we have concluded that consular sections in several regions are understaffed to meet current and anticipated workload, while posts in other regions are overstaffed. To correct the imbalance, the Bureau of Consular Affairs plans to transfer approximately 30 consular positions from overstaffed to understaffed posts and create 22 additional positions. Most of these will be entry-level positions, although some mid-level positions will be included as well. There will be gains and losses at posts in all bureaus, but we anticipate net gains at certain posts in Asia and the Western Hemisphere – places like India, China, Brazil, and Mexico. Most of the transfers will come from European posts. We have begun this repositioning exercise and expect it to continue over the coming two to three years, in order to provide time to create the positions and identify suitable officers, ensure there is adequate space to accommodate new personnel, and minimize the disruption to posts that are identified for position transfers. We will open additional consular facilities in key countries. The Department of State has obtained funding to open a fifth consulate in Hyderabad, in southern India. A team led by Under Secretary for Management Henrietta Fore was in Hyderabad earlier this month to inspect the proposed site. We hope to be able to open a consulate in Hyderabad, to include the provision of visa services, in FY 2008. Technological Improvements The Bureau of Consular Affairs exploits advanced technologies to automate consular processes wherever possible. This promotes security and efficiency by reducing or eliminating data entry, printing, shipping, storage, and filing burdens on our posts worldwide. Our strategy for meeting our visa demand challenges includes exploring how technology can provide consular officers with the information to make more rapid and accurate decisions and to collapse the distance between the consular officer and the traveler. Building on the successful and widespread use of the EVAF, we anticipate moving to an entirely paperless, electronic visa application process by the end of 2007. Current law and regulations require the incorporation of biometrics in all U.S. visas and the State Department meets this requirement by collecting two fingerprint scans from each visa applicant. The prints are verified against interagency databases to screen for terrorists and others who may be ineligible for a visa. Two fingerprint scans provide a limited amount of data, and our experience is that they yield a large number of “false positive” results, which can delay the visa process and inconvenience legitimate travelers. Ten fingerprints provide a greater number of data points and much more accurate responses, allowing us to more broadly screen individuals to better verify identity and ensure that the individual does not pose a risk to security prior to travel to the United States. We are piloting the collection of ten fingerprints at five posts (London, San Salvador, Riyadh, Dhahran, and Asuncion) and plan to deploy this technology at every post by the end of 2007. We are also exploring other technological developments, such as remote data collection and visa adjudication and interviews via digital videoconference. Pilot tests of remote data collection at several locations in the field (U.K, Germany, Japan, and Samoa) demonstrated that the technology is not yet fully mature. We must address technical issues concerning data transmission and security, as well as legal issues, before we are able to incorporate remote adjudication into a workable visa system. Similarly, although we have successfully tested interviews via digital videoconference between London and Belfast, there are considerable technical and security issues to resolve before we can consider wider application of this technology – including, for example, ensuring that the video image on the screen and the fingerprint data sent in remotely belong to the same applicant. We will continue to explore the possibilities of this and other technologies for our ability to provide remote visa services and for improving visa services overall. In February 2007 the Bureau of Consular Affairs established a worldwide customer service standard by which every nonimmigrant visa applicant at any post should be scheduled for an appointment within 30 days. The customer service standard for students and U.S.-interest business visas is 15 days or less. In addition, all applicants who are found eligible for a visa and who do not require additional security-related processing should expect the visa to be issued within three days of the interview. As I previously noted, we already meet these standards at the majority of our posts. Our goal is that by the end of 2008, 100 per cent of posts will be able to meet this 30-day appointment benchmark. To achieve this goal, posts have been instructed to conscientiously update appointment wait times. The Bureau of Consular Affairs will continue to monitor appointment wait times closely. We will work with posts that approach or exceed the benchmark to refine internal management practices and devise solutions, and we will consider the use of temporary duty assistance when warranted. Public Diplomacy: Dispelling Misperceptions Despite the initiatives we have taken, despite the U.S. visa issuance and demand numbers, and despite the international visitor figures, there is still the perception in some quarters that the visa process discourages travelers from seeking to come to the United States. In some cases, that perception is borne of the small number of cases where travelers encounter real difficulties. In many cases, however, it is fueled by stories in the media which rely on outdated statistics or anecdotes that do not reflect current realities. I regret this very much, particularly given what has been done by my colleagues at the Department of State and at embassies and consulates overseas. We need to dispel misperceptions. We have been doing so with an aggressive public outreach campaign. Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Maura Harty has spoken to a number of business audiences over the past two years, and she takes every opportunity to reach out to international audiences during her official travel overseas. Most recently, she addressed the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce on March 5, and in February she spoke to the American Chambers of Commerce in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Macau regarding our efforts to facilitate legitimate tourist and business travel to the United States. She has published letters to the Editor on the same subject which have appeared in outlets such as The Economist and the New York Times. We raise this important issue at every opportunity during our extensive domestic outreach program. Ambassadors and other officials lead our outreach efforts overseas, speaking to business and student groups and placing op-ed articles in local newspapers to encourage travelers to consider travel and study in the United States. We have also consulted closely with the travel community over the past three years to take their concerns into account and solicit suggestions on how we can improve the visa process without compromising national security. A “Secure Borders, Open Doors” Advisory Committee, composed of government and travel community representatives and established under the Rice-Chertoff Joint Vision, held an inaugural meeting on December 6, 2006, to devise strategies to get our message out to legitimate travelers: America wants you and we welcome you. Mr. Chairman, our efforts to facilitate legitimate travel to the United States while protecting the security of this nation will continue. Improving America’s welcome for foreign visitors, and countering lingering misperceptions about that welcome, will require joint efforts by both government and private stakeholders. We look forward to working with business groups and our partner agencies toward that goal. In the meantime, we will ensure that our welcome begins with an efficient, accessible, and secure visa process.
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