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entitled 'Homeland Security: Performance of Information System to 
Monitor Foreign Students and Exchange Visitors Has Improved, but Issues 
Remain' which was released on June 18, 2004.

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Report to Congressional Committees: 

June 2004: 

HOMELAND SECURITY: 

Performance of Information System to Monitor Foreign Students and 
Exchange Visitors Has Improved, but Issues Remain: 

GAO-04-690: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-04-690, a report to congressional committees. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has implemented the Student 
and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) to collect and record 
key data on foreign students, exchange visitors, and their dependents—
prior to their entering the United States, upon their entry, and during 
their stay. In accordance with Conference Report 108-280, GAO reviewed 
SEVIS. Among the areas it examined were (1) system performance, (2) 
actions to improve performance, and (3) plans for collecting the fee 
to be paid by foreign students and exchange visitors to cover SEVIS 
costs.

What GAO Found: 

Several indicators show that SEVIS performance is improving. First, 
program office reports for some key system performance requirements 
show that these requirements are being met. However, not all key 
performance requirements are being monitored or reported on. Without 
formally monitoring all key performance requirements, DHS cannot 
adequately assure itself that potential problems will be identified 
and addressed early. Second, other, less formal indicators of 
performance, such as daily system use by program officials and 
unsolicited user feedback, indicate that the system is meeting 
requirements. Third, GAO’s analysis of new requests for system 
changes, including changes to address reported performance problems, 
shows these requests are declining. Finally, officials representing 
educational organizations generally see performance as having 
improved. 

DHS has taken specific actions to improve SEVIS performance. In 
particular, it has installed a series of new software releases and 
increased Help Desk staffing and training. In addition, program 
officials are holding regularly scheduled meetings, both internally and 
with educational representatives, and are asking user groups to test 
new releases. Despite these efforts, however, educational 
organizations continue to report problems, such as the quality of Help 
Desk assistance. The following table identifies reported system 
problems, examples, and DHS’s responses.

DHS Actions to Address User Problems: 

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

DHS submitted its final rule on the SEVIS fee to the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) in February and plans to collect the fee 
once OMB approves it. Representatives of educational organizations are 
concerned that two of the three payment options in DHS’s final rule 
are either not available to all students in developing countries or 
will result in significant delays. Program officials acknowledge the 
increased demands on students and visitors, but do not believe that 
these demands warrant changes to their plans.


What GAO Recommends: 

To strengthen SEVIS, GAO is making recommendations designed to improve 
DHS’s monitoring of key system performance requirements, address 
educational association performance concerns, and expedite collection 
of the fee. DHS agreed with most of our findings, conclusions, and 
recommendations. It did not fully agree with two of our findings and 
their associated recommendations.

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-690. To view the full product, 
including the scope and methodology, click on the link above. For more 
information, contact Randolph C. Hite at (202) 512-3439 or 
hiter@gao.gov. 

[End of section]

Contents: 

Letter: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendixes: 

Appendix I: Briefing to the Staffs of the Subcommittees on Homeland 
Security, Senate and House Committees on Appropriations: 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security: 

GAO Comments: 

Appendix III: Comments from the Department of State: 

GAO Comments: 

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

Abbreviations: 

DHS: Department of Homeland Security: 

ICE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement: 

SEVP: Student and Exchange Visitor Program: 

SEVIS: Student and Exchange Visitor Information System: 

OMB: Office of Management and Budget: 

IIRIRA: Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act: 

OIRM: Office of Information Resource Management: 

CCD: Consular Consolidated Database: 

NIV: Nonimmigrant Visa System: 

US-VISIT: United States Visitor and Immigration Status Indicator 
Technology: 

CLAIMS 3: Computer Linked Application Information Management System: 

CPU: Central Processing Unit: 

SCR: System Change Request: 

Letter June 18, 2004: 

The Honorable Thad Cochran: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Robert C. Byrd: 
Ranking Minority Member: 
Subcommittee on Homeland Security: 
Committee on Appropriations: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Harold Rogers: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Martin Olav Sabo: 
Ranking Minority Member: 
Subcommittee on Homeland Security: 
Committee on Appropriations: 
House of Representatives: 

The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) is an 
Internet-based system that collects and records information on foreign 
students, exchange visitors, and their dependents prior to their 
entering the United States, upon their entry, and during their stay. 
SEVIS has the following objectives: 

* support the oversight and enforcement of laws and regulations 
pertaining to foreign students, exchange visitors, schools, and 
exchange visitor program sponsors authorized by the government to issue 
eligibility documents, and: 

* improve the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) processing of 
foreign students and exchange visitors at ports of entry through 
streamlined procedures and modernized data capture.

Within DHS's Immigration and Customs Enforcement organization, the 
Student and Exchange Visitor Program is responsible for certifying 
schools to accept foreign students in academic and vocational programs 
and managing SEVIS. DHS required schools and exchange programs to start 
using the system for new students and exchange visitors beginning 
February 15, 2003, and for all continuing students beginning August 1, 
2003.

In accordance with Conference Report 108-280,[Footnote 1] we reviewed 
various aspects of SEVIS. Specifically, our objectives were to (1) 
determine how well the system is performing, (2) identify what actions 
DHS has taken to improve system performance, (3) determine what data 
the system collects and who uses it, and (4) determine the government's 
plans for collecting the SEVIS fee.[Footnote 2]

On April 1, 2004, we provided your offices with a written briefing on 
the results of our review. The full briefing, including details of our 
scope and methodology, is reprinted as appendix I. The purpose of this 
report is to provide the published briefing slides to you and to 
officially transmit our recommendations to the Secretary of Homeland 
Security.

In summary, our briefing made the following four main points: 

* According to several indicators, SEVIS performance is improving. 
First, program office reports relating to certain system performance 
requirements[Footnote 3] show that requirements are being met. However, 
several key system performance requirements are not being formally 
measured. This is problematic because, without formally monitoring and 
documenting key system performance requirements, DHS cannot adequately 
assure itself that potential system problems are identified and 
addressed early before they have a chance to become larger problems 
that could affect the DHS mission objectives supported by SEVIS. 
Second, other, less formal indicators of performance--such as the 
program office's daily use of the system and unsolicited feedback from 
users--likewise indicate that the system is meeting requirements. 
Third, our analysis of new system change requests[Footnote 4] shows 
that the number of new requests is steadily declining, which similarly 
suggests that performance has improved. Finally, officials representing 
ten educational organizations[Footnote 5] stated that system 
performance had improved.

* To DHS's credit, it has taken a number of actions to improve SEVIS 
performance. In particular, it has installed a series of new software 
releases and has increased Help Desk staffing and training. 
Nonetheless, problems continue to be reported, such as the quality of 
Help Desk support.[Footnote 6]

* SEVIS collects a wide range of data, most of which are required by 
legislation, regulation, or presidential directive. The system also 
collects some data that are not required. Most of these elements, such 
as information regarding visas and passports, are important to managing 
the SEVIS program, but are not required and are only captured on a 
voluntary basis. The data are used by schools, exchange programs, and 
offices within DHS and State to oversee the pre-entry, entry, and stay 
of foreign students, exchange visitors, and their dependents. The data 
are also used by DHS and State to oversee the schools and exchange 
visitor programs.

* DHS intends to collect the SEVIS fee starting this year, but almost 7 
years have passed since collection of this fee was required; thus 
millions of dollars in revenue have been and will continue to be lost 
until the fee is actually collected.[Footnote 7] DHS submitted its 
final rule on the fee, which includes three payment options, to the 
Office of Management and Budget on February 19, 2004, and is waiting to 
hear if the rule is approved.[Footnote 8] Representatives of 
educational organizations are concerned that two of the payment options 
are either not available to all students in developing countries, or 
that they will result in significant delays. While program officials 
acknowledge that collection of the fee will increase the demands placed 
on students and exchange visitors, they stated that such concerns do 
not warrant changes to their plans for collecting the fee. The longer 
disagreements over how the fee should be collected go unresolved, the 
longer SEVIS reduces the Immigration Examination Fee funds available to 
other programs. Resolution of such differences in perspective is 
precisely what the rulemaking process is intended to accomplish. 
Therefore, it is important that the outcome of this process be 
implemented quickly.

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To strengthen SEVIS performance, we recommend that the Secretary of 
Homeland Security direct the Assistant Secretary of Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement to ensure that the Student and Exchange Visitor 
Program Director take the following three actions: 

* Assess the extent to which defined SEVIS performance requirements are 
still relevant and are being formally measured.

* Provide for measurement of key performance requirements that are not 
being formally measured.

* Assess educational organization Help Desk concerns and take 
appropriate action to address these concerns.

We further recommend that the Secretary direct the Assistant Secretary 
of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take the necessary steps to 
provide for the expeditious implementation of the results of the SEVIS 
fee rulemaking process.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Both DHS and State provided comments on a draft of this report. In 
written comments signed by the Assistant Secretary, Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement (reprinted in app. II, along with our responses), 
DHS agreed with most of our findings, conclusions, and recommendations. 
However, it did not fully agree with two of our findings and their 
associated recommendations.

First, DHS did not agree with our finding that the SEVIS program was 
not monitoring and reporting on all system performance requirements, 
and it agreed in part with our associated recommendation, adding that 
it believes that we did not fully assess all data that the program 
office provided to us on this matter. DHS said it was resubmitting 
these data to clarify our finding. We acknowledge that DHS provided in 
its comments data on system performance monitoring and reporting, but 
we do not agree that we did not fully assess the data previously 
provided, and thus we have not modified our finding and associated 
recommendation. In particular, neither the data enclosed with its 
comments, nor the data previously provided, specifically addresses 
measurement of SEVIS availability. As we state in our report, while the 
program monitors and reports on the availability of the communications 
software on its application servers, which can be used to identify 
problems that could affect SEVIS availability, it does not specifically 
measure SEVIS availability (i.e., the SEVIS application may not be 
available even though the communication software is). Further, we 
acknowledge DHS's statement in the enclosure that it has implemented a 
new SEVIS-specific processor utilization tool, which relates to one of 
the performance requirements that our report cited as not being 
monitored and reported on. However, information on this tool was not 
previously provided to us and thus could not be verified by us and 
included in our briefing. We are nevertheless supportive of any recent 
program actions that would expand system monitoring and reporting to 
include all key performance requirements.

Second, DHS did not fully agree with our finding regarding the use of 
taxpayer dollars to fund SEVIS. According to DHS, SEVIS has been funded 
by both appropriated funds and immigration examination user fees, which 
are collected from nonimmigrants seeking benefits. We do not question 
DHS's statement that the program has been supported by $36.8 million in 
appropriated (taxpayer-funded) and $34.3 million in immigration 
examination user fees funds. Our finding is that 7 years have passed 
since the fee collection was required, and millions of dollars have 
been spent (both appropriated and user fees) and will continue to be 
spent until the SEVIS fee is actually collected. Even if SEVIS is 
prospectively funded with the immigration examination user fees, until 
the SEVIS fee is collected, the amount of funds available to other 
programs funded by this account is reduced. With respect to our 
associated recommendation, DHS commented that it agreed in part, noting 
that while it shared the recommendation's sense of urgency in 
implementing the SEVIS user fee, it did not agree that the Assistant 
Secretary needed to be directed to take the necessary steps to 
expeditiously do so because these steps were already being taken. As we 
stated in our report, although we were told that steps were under way 
to begin collecting the fee, DHS officials did not provide us with a 
plan showing, for example, what these steps are. Our recommendation is 
intended to address this absence of explicit planning for how this 
shared sense of urgency in implementing the fee will be accomplished.

In written comments signed by the Department of State's Assistant 
Secretary and Chief Financial Officer (reprinted in app. III, along 
with our response), the department stated that its concerns with 
collecting the SEVIS fee that we cite in the report remain valid. It 
also stated that since the report was originally drafted, it has 
initiated a pilot project with DHS to explore the feasibility of 
collecting the fee at both consular offices using foreign financial 
institutions and at consular offices with internal cashiers. According 
to State, the pilot is to be conducted in a small number of consulates, 
and will only be extended on a post-by-post and country-by-country 
basis. The department also provided technical comments, which we have 
incorporated as appropriate in the report.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Homeland 
Security, the Secretary of State, and to the Director, Office of 
Management and Budget. We will also make copies available to others 
upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on 
the GAO Web site at [Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov.

Should you have any question on matters contained in this report, 
please contact me at (202) 512-3439, or by e-mail at [Hyperlink, 
hiter@gao.gov]. The GAO contact and key contributors to this report 
are listed in appendix IV.

Signed by: 

Randolph C. Hite: 
Director, Information Technology Architecture and Systems Issues: 

[End of section]

Appendixes: 

Appendix I: Briefing to the Staffs of the Subcommittees on Homeland 
Security, Senate and House Committees on Appropriations: 

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

[End of section]

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security: 

Office of the Assistant Secretary:

U.S. Department of Homeland Security: 
425 I Street, NW:
Washington, DC 20536:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement:

May 27, 2004:

Mr. Randolph C. Hite:

Director, Information Technology Architecture and Systems Issues: 
U.S. General Accounting Office 
441 G Street, NW:
Washington, DC 20548:

Dear Mr. Hite:

We have received your draft report, SEVIS Performance, GAO-04-690, 
(310271) and appreciate being provided the opportunity to comment. 
Below we have commented on each recommendation as well as on 
information presented in the report.

Recommendations 1 and 2:

1. Assess the extent to which defined SEVIS performance requirements 
are still relevant and are being formally measured; and,

2. Provide for measurement of key performance requirements that are not 
being formally measured.

We concur with the first part of the performance-related recommendation 
and concur in part on the second part of the recommendation.

By November 19, 2004, U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 
will complete the Government Accounting Office's (GAO's) recommended 
assessment for determining the extent to which SEVIS' defined 
performance requirements are still relevant. However, we respectfully 
believe GAO has not assessed all of the data provided to them for 
determining that ICE must "provide for measurement of key performance 
requirements that are not being formally measured." In Enclosure 1 ICE 
has defined formal measurements for the key performance requirements 
and is resubmitting them for your convenience and clarification of this 
issue.

Recommendation 3: Assess educational organization Help Desk concerns, 
and take appropriate actions to address these concerns.

We concur with this recommendation. As stated on Slide 50, we have 
addressed six of the seven areas regarding Help Desk support. The 
seventh area, "Inability to download data so that users could 
manipulate it themselves and create useful reports" is much more 
complex. We stated that we are evaluating software options to extract 
user requested data, provide summary reports, and perform statistical 
analyses. Please see Enclosure 2 for our detailed explanation.

Recommendation 4: We further recommend that the Secretary direct the 
Assistant Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take the 
necessary steps to provide for the expeditious implementation of the 
results from the SEVIS fee rulemaking process.

We concur in part. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shares the 
sense of urgency in implementing the SEVIS fee, but does not agree with 
the need for any directive. The ICE Student and Exchange Visitor 
Program (SEVP) is taking all steps necessary to implement the SEVIS fee 
in an expeditious and organized manner. The requirement of any 
directive as insinuated in the recommendation is unnecessary and fails 
to recognize the efforts taken to implement this fee. ICE and the DHS 
are committed to making this program, including the fee requirement, 
operational and successful and have dedicated senior level attention to 
the matter. To date, SEVP has actively worked with the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) and achieved clearance of the SEVIS Fee 
Rule from OMB on May 19, 2004. Our original intent in February 2004 was 
to publish the rule immediately upon OMB clearance and require the fee 
collection to be effective in early June 2004. However, due to required 
system changes and delays in implementing the Form 1-901, Fee 
Collection Process, the effective date for fee collection was changed. 
Taking into consideration the timelines associated with the Form 1-901, 
Fee Collection Process, as well as, the concerns raised by the 
educational community, implementation of the collection of the SEVIS 
fee was changed to September 1, 2004. The effective date will be 
published as part of a comprehensive communication/ outreach strategy 
aimed at educating all stakeholders about the SEVIS Fee process (to 
include academic institutions, exchange visitor programs, prospective 
students and exchange visitors, academic organizations and exchange 
visitor sponsors).

The GAO Report states that "Notwithstanding DHS's plans to begin 
collecting the SE VIS fee, almost 7 years have passed since collection 
of this fee was required, and thus millions of dollars in revenue have 
been and will continue to be lost until the fee is actually collected. 
While DHS, State and educational institutions do not fully agree on how 
the fee should be collected, the fact remains that the longer this goes 
unresolved, the longer taxpayers will have to pay for SE VIS (emphasis 
added). Further, resolution of such differences in perspective is 
precisely what the rulemaking process is intended to accomplish. 
Therefore, it is important that the outcome of this process be 
implemented quickly." SEVP does not fully agree with the specific 
statement regarding the use of taxpayer funds and wishes to provide 
additional information. To date SEVP has been supported by $36.8 
million in appropriated (taxpayer-funded) Counter-Terrorism funds and 
$34.3 million in Immigration Examinations Fee funds, which were used 
for historical development costs from fiscal years:

(FYs) 1997 through 2003. The Examinations Fee funds were collected from 
non-immigrants seeking benefits. Funds for Counter-Terrorism will no 
longer be available to SEVP after this fiscal year. SEVP wholeheartedly 
concurs with the GAO that the SEVIS fee be implemented in an 
expeditious manner to avoid the need for any additional taxpayer 
funding beyond the Counter-Terrorism funds.

Thank you again for the opportunity to respond to the draft report. If 
you have any questions, please contact Eddie L. Carlisle, Audit 
Liaison, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at (202) 305-0132.

Sincerely, 

Michael J. Garcia: 
Assistant Secretary:

Enclosures (2):

Enclosure 1:

GAO stated on Page 3 of the April 1, 2004 Briefing to the Staffs of the 
Subcommittees on Homeland Security Senate and House Committees on 
Appropriations that: "However, not all key performance requirements are 
being monitored or reported on." And, Slide 29 supporting the same 
briefing stated: "Without formally monitoring and documenting all key 
system performance requirements, DHS cannot adequately assure itself 
that potential system problems are identified and addressed early, 
before they have a chance to become larger problems that could affect 
DHS mission objectives supported by SEVIS."

We request that GAO amend their statements because of the detailed 
formal information that ICE employs to monitor our performance as cited 
on Slides 30-33 that address the documented performance requirements 
stated on Slide 29. In several lengthy meetings with the GAO, ICE 
provided additional formal reporting information on the key performance 
requirements and stated that the last performance requirement, 
(Resource Usage bullet) on Slide 30, requires modification as it is not 
relevant as stated for our e-Gov environment and for a large national 
communications network. ICE has also implemented a SEVIS-specific CPU 
utilization tool, mentioned on Slide 34. Further, ICE has provided 
additional reports that depict our formal monitoring of the CPU usage 
prior to our implementing the new tool.

Hence, we believe that the statement, "However, not all key performance 
requirements are being monitored or reported on.", does not factually 
reflect that we are formally monitoring all key performance 
requirements (with the understanding that some performance requirements 
must be reviewed for relevancy).

Enclosure 2:

To provide solutions for extracting user requested data, providing 
summary reports, and performing statistical analyses will take at least 
12 months of analysis and perhaps longer (depending on the results of 
the analysis) to implement.

The primary reason for the length of the analysis period is the sheer 
magnitude of the processing that occurs on a daily basis. In addition 
to thousands of Internet and Intranet users, we process 450-600 batch 
files each night for our large school and exchange program 
institutions; we also process numerous interfaces to the Department of 
State and the US-VISIT Program daily. And, because we are processing 
data 24 hours per day, our primary area of investigation will center on 
establishing an entirely new platform that would mirror the primary 
production platform. 

The following are GAO's comments on the Department of Homeland 
Security's letter dated May 27, 2004.

GAO Comments: 

1. We do not agree that we did not fully assess all data that the 
program office provided to us. We carefully considered all the data 
that were provided, and neither these data, nor the data enclosed with 
DHS's comments, addressed all key performance requirements, such as 
system availability. As we state in our report, DHS monitors and 
reports on the availability of the communications software on the 
application servers, which may be used to identify problems that could 
affect SEVIS availability, but does not specifically measure SEVIS 
availability (i.e., the SEVIS application may not be available even 
though the communication software is). Therefore, we have not modified 
our finding and associated recommendation. We acknowledge DHS's 
statement in the enclosure that it has implemented a new SEVIS-specific 
processor utilization tool, which relates to one of the performance 
requirements cited in our report as not being monitored and reported 
on. However, DHS had not previously provided this information to us and 
thus we could not verify the data and include it in our briefing. 
Nevertheless, we are supportive of any recent program actions that 
would expand system monitoring and reporting to include all key 
performance requirements.

2. We do not question DHS's commitment to making the SEVP program, 
including the fee requirement, operational and successful. However, as 
we state in our report, although program officials told us that they 
had developed a plan for implementing the SEVIS collection process, 
they did not provide us with the plan showing their intended actions. 
Further, DHS did not include in its comments a plan for implementing 
the fee. Our recommendation is intended to address this absence of 
explicit planning for implementing the fee collection process.

3. We do not question DHS's comment that SEVIS has been supported by 
$36.8 million in appropriated funds (counter-terrorism funds) and $34.3 
million in immigration examinations fee funds, which are collected from 
nonimmigrants seeking benefits. This comment is consistent with our 
finding that 7 years have passed since the fee collection was required, 
and millions of dollars have been spent (both appropriated and user 
fees) and will continue to be spent until the SEVIS fee is actually 
collected. Even if SEVIS is prospectively funded with the immigration 
examination user fees, until the SEVIS fee is collected, the amount of 
funds available to other programs funded by this account is reduced.

[End of section]

Appendix III: Comments from the Department of State: 

United States Department of State:

Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer 
Washington, D.C. 20520:

Ms. Jacqueline Williams-Bridgers 
Managing Director:
International Affairs and Trade: 
General Accounting Office: 
441 G Street, N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20548-0001:

Dear Ms. Williams-Bridgers:

We appreciate the opportunity to review your draft report, "HOMELAND 
SECURITY: Performance of Information System to Monitor Foreign Students 
and Exchange Visitors Has Improved But Issues Remain," GAO Job Code 
310271.

The enclosed Department of State comments are provided for 
incorporation with this letter as an appendix to the final report.

If you have any questions concerning this response, please contact 
Martin Tatuch, Deputy Division Chief, Bureau of Consular Affairs, at 
(202) 663-1156.

Sincerely,

Signed by: 

Christopher B. Burnham: 

cc: GAO - Jeanette Espinola 
CA - Daniel Smith 
State/OIG - Mark Duda 
State/H - Paul Kelly:
 
Department of State Comments on GAO Draft Report Performance of 
Information System to Monitor Students and Exchange Visitors has 
Improved but Issues Remain (GAO job code 310271):

Thank you for allowing the Department of State the opportunity to 
comment on the draft report "Performance of Information System to 
Monitor Students and Exchange Visitors has Improved But Issues Remain", 
which reviews the progress of the Department of Homeland Security's 
(DHS) Student and Exchange Visitor Information System program.

The report (pg. 35) cites DHS statistics concerning the number of 
persons enrolled in the program, describing them as persons who have 
"used visas." It is important to note that the number of persons 
enrolled in SEVIS does not necessarily equate to the number of visas 
issued by consulates overseas. Some persons enrolled in SEVIS are not 
issued visas, other persons may have more than one SEVIS record. It is 
more accurate to say that there are a number of student or exchange 
visitor records active in the SEVIS system.

Since this report was originally drafted, State and DHS have worked 
together to explore a pilot project to collect the SEVIS fee overseas 
through Department of State channels. This pilot is being developed to 
explore the feasibility of fee collection at both consular offices with 
outsourced fee collection using foreign financial institutions and at 
consular offices with internal cashiers. The pilot will be conducted in 
a small number of consulates.

The concerns raised by the Department of State with the GAO team remain 
valid. We are concerned that collection of the SEVIS fee through 
consular channels will raise significant issues of cost and complexity. 
We have agreed with DHS that a needs analysis will be done to document 
the requirement for an alternative fee collection method in each 
individual country being considered. To avoid increased fee settlement 
costs that would be spread among all fee payers, this pilot would be 
extended only post-by-post, country-by-country, on the basis of 
documented need. 

The following are GAO's comments on the Department of State's letter.

GAO Comments: 

1. The information presented is based on DHS-provided data addressing 
active students and exchange visitors registered in SEVIS as of 
February 6, 2004, and is appropriately attributed to DHS. We have added 
a footnote to our briefing noting State's comment.

[End of section]

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Deborah Davis, (202) 512-6261, d [Hyperlink, davisd@gao.gov.] 
avisd@gao.gov.

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the individual named above, Camille M. Chaires, Neil 
Doherty, Jeanette Espinola, Michael P. Fruitman, Jamelyn Payan, and Nik 
Rapelje made key contributions to this report.

(310281): 

FOOTNOTES

[1] H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-280, at 32 (2003). 

[2] The fee is to be paid by foreign students and exchange visitors to 
cover SEVIS costs. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant 
Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) first required that schools and 
exchange programs collect the fee (P.L. 104-208, Sept. 30, 1996). The 
Visa Waiver Permanent Program Act (2000) amended IIRIRA to require that 
the government collect the SEVIS fee (P.L. 106-396, Oct. 30, 2000).

[3] Examples of performance requirements are (1) the system is to be 
available 99.5 percent of the time to all users 24 hours a day, 7 days 
a week, excluding scheduled downtime and (2) the time to respond to 
user queries, as measured as the response time between the application 
server and database, is to be less than 10 seconds. 

[4] Change requests are used to track all system changes, including 
corrections to erroneous system programming, as well as planned system 
enhancements. 

[5] We contacted representatives from the following 12 organizations: 
Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training, Alliance for 
International Educational and Cultural Exchange, American Association 
of Collegiate Registrars, American Association of Community Colleges, 
American Council on Education, Association of American Universities, 
Association of International Educators, Council for Standards for 
International Educational Travel, Council on International Educational 
Exchange, National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher 
Education, National Association of College and University Business 
Officers, and the National Association of State Universities and Land-
Grant Colleges. Two of the organizations stated that they did not have 
the detailed information in which we were interested for this 
engagement.

[6] The SEVIS Help Desk was established to assist system users by 
providing troubleshooting and resolution of technical problems, along 
with problem escalation and resolution, and changes to the database.

[7] In its comments, DHS stated that SEVIS has been supported by both 
appropriated and Immigration Examination fee funds. IIRIRA required 
that the SEVIS fee be deposited in the Immigration Examination Fee 
Account (P.L. 104-208, Sept. 30, 1996). 

[8] In agency comments on a draft of this report, DHS stated that it 
received clearance of the SEVIS rule from the Office of Management and 
Budget on May 19, 2004. 

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