Before the Subcommittees on 21st Century Competitiveness & Select Education Committee on Education and the Workforce

Testimony of Stephen A. Edson Managing
Director, Office of Visa Services
March 17, 2005

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:

I appreciate your invitation to testify before you regarding the role that the Department of State plays in the processing of student visas. The Bureau of Consular Affairs is responsible for protecting the lives and interests of U.S. citizens overseas, and for making lawful and conscientious judgments about applications for passports for U.S. citizens, as well as visa applications for immigrants and visitors, including students and exchange visitors. Consular officers serve at our 211 posts that adjudicate visa applications all over the world. They quite literally form this nation’s first line of defense against international terrorists, transnational criminals and others who would do this country harm.

 

Consular officers also serve as the public face of the United States Government overseas, and appreciate that America is a nation of immigrants, and has always welcomed legitimate visitors from all over the globe. This is the foundation of the Department’s policy of Secure Borders and Open Doors; an apt description of the balance we strive for between border security and openness.

 

Secure Borders and Open Doors

It is in our own national interest to encourage people who want to visit our beautiful nation, conduct business, and study at our educational institutions, rightly famous the world over for offering the very best in education. We have particular regard for international students, recognizing that the U.S. is preeminent in the field of higher education worldwide, and gained that standing with the contributions of students and academics from all over the world.

 

International students attending U.S. colleges and universities account for $13 billion in revenues each year. Beyond the economic benefits, we as a nation gain immeasurably from international students and scholars who study at our colleges and universities and conduct research at our leading medical and scientific facilities.

 

State Department-sponsored international exchange programs, including Fulbright scholarships and International Visitor grants, offer a particularly compelling illustration of the impact of academic exchanges. Since the Fulbright Program’s inception, over 255,000 people have participated in Fulbright exchanges. More than 110,000 people have participated in the Department of State’s International Visitor Program, which brings current and future leaders of other nations to the U.S. for targeted education opportunities. Worldwide, more than 200 alumni of U.S. exchange programs have become heads of state or government, including Anwar Sadat, Hamid Karzai, Tony Blair, Kim Dae-Jung of South Korea, Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, Ricardo Lagos of Chile, and Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia, to name only a few.

 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been a vocal advocate of the abiding U.S. tradition of welcoming students and other visitors to the United States. On March 9, she stated to the House Committee on Appropriations, "We will continue to work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to identify and prevent terrorists and other adversaries from doing harm, even as we maintain the fundamental openness that gives our democracy its dynamism and makes our country a beacon for international tourists, students, immigrants, and businesspeople. We will keep America’s doors open and our borders secure."

 

The Department of State adjudicates student visa applications in three general categories: F-1 visas for those engaged in academic studies at an accredited institution, J-1 visas for those participating in exchange programs, and M-1 visas for those engaged in non-academic or vocational study or training at a U.S. institution. In addition, derivative visa categories allow the immediate family members of students and exchange visitors to accompany qualified students during their period of study in the United States.

 

Processing Delays

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the State Department and other agencies made many far-reaching changes to strengthen border security that had an impact on visa processing. Some of the changes resulted in visa processing delays. For example, the State Department implemented a more robust visa screening system, or security advisory opinion (SAO) system, with our interagency partners that resulted in many more applicants requiring additional screening. The interagency SAO process, strained by the larger workload, led to particularly lengthy delays in 2002-2003. Processing delays were exacerbated when we expanded the requirement for personal interviews to include almost all visa applicants in order to enhance security, and in preparation for the implementation of a Congressional mandate that we collect biometric data from visa applicants.

 

Improvements

The Bureau of Consular Affairs, in cooperation with its partners in the U.S. Government, has undertaken a transformation of visa procedures over the last three years. We have aggressively refined our processes and procedures to enhance the transparency, efficiency and predictability of the visa application process. Allow me to enumerate the Bureau’s initiatives.

For the last two years, we have instructed all of our overseas posts to give priority to students and exchange visitors. Our Embassies and Consulates have implemented this requirement in a number of ways and have been very successful in getting student applicants appointments in a timely way.

 

Visa applicants now have more information to plan their travel since we began requiring that all visa processing posts publicize current visa appointment wait times and processing times on our Internet website at: www.travel.state.gov. In fact, we overhauled the entire website to make it more user-friendly and to provide additional resource material. Having more information about the process helps visa applicants be better prepared when they attend an interview.

 

We have added to the resources dedicated to processing visas, in spite of the significant drop over the last two years in the number of visa applications we have received. We have created more than 350 new consular positions since September 2001 and the President’s FY 2006 Budget request includes funding for an additional 121 consular officer positions.

We have greatly increased the level of data sharing among the Department and other federal agencies to enhance border security. For example, we have made visa information available to DHS Customs and Border Protection Officers at ports of entry. This actually facilitates entry, since it resolves immediately any questions an inspector might have about fraud.

We have made a concerted effort to undertake the most sweeping changes in a way that mitigates their impact. For example, we implemented changes to our interview requirements well in advance of the Congressional deadline to collect biometrics from all visa applicants by October 26, 2004. We made the changes in August 2003 so that our visa processing posts overseas could adopt procedures to manage the new workflow and so that the transition would be a smooth one.

We invested $1 million in automating outdated systems for transmitting and receiving interagency security clearances. New software is in place at every post to automate what was previously a paper-based system. Requests and responses are now transmitted electronically to some agencies, cutting days off of the processing time and enhancing tracking and accountability.

 

We have lengthened and enhanced consular training so that the consular officers we send into the field are better prepared to handle their adjudicatory responsibilities, and more familiar with the full context for their work. The basic consular training curriculum has been expanded from 26 to 31 days and incorporates advanced interviewing techniques that give consular officers more confidence in their decisions. The training also includes presentations on security threats and on the importance of international education and exchange.

 

Results

The result of these investments is a demonstrably better visa application process across the board. Now, almost all of the visa applications we receive – some 97 percent – are processed in one or two days. For the two-and-a-half percent of visa applicants who, for national security reasons, are subject to additional interagency screening, we have streamlined the process so that even this small percentage of the overall number of applicants can expect an answer promptly.

 

A portion of the cases that require interagency clearance are assigned special clearances due the applicant’s involvement in a sensitive scientific field where the United States Government has concerns about the transfer of sensitive technology for hostile use. We refer to these applications as VISAS MANTIS cases and for a time they were subject to prolonged delays. To address the problem we assigned a special team of employees within the Bureau to handle MANTIS cases and reached agreement on improvements with other agencies involved in this process.

 

The improvement in processing time is striking. In November 2003, the average processing time for a MANTIS case was about 72 days. Today, the average processing time for a MANTIS is less than 14 days.

 

Through the interagency process, we also extended the validity of MANTIS clearances for students from one year, in most cases, to the entire length of the academic program. This means that, if a student receives a clearance, it remains valid as long as he or she remains in the program, up to a maximum of four years.

 

Where it makes sense to do so, we pursue expanded visa reciprocity agreements with other nations. For example, China is the largest source country for international students in the United States. About a year ago we undertook active negotiations with China to secure a more liberal reciprocal visa regime to facilitate legitimate travel. Our efforts have resulted in an agreement between the United States and China, that took effect on January 15, to lengthen the maximum validity of business and tourist visas from six months (multiple entry) to 12 months. We seek the same treatment for students but understand that it will require a change in China’s domestic law. Nevertheless, we will continue to press the Chinese government for this liberalization on behalf of students.

 

SEVIS

I understand that you are particularly interested in information about the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS). The Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement administers SEVIS, and I defer to my colleagues in DHS to discuss it. I would however, like to discuss some of the real benefits to the Department of State and foreign students that SEVIS provides by verifying that a student is enrolled at an approved institution. The system provides a level of security and confidence in the documentation of enrollment from an educational institution, called the I-20, that was previously unavailable. Consular officers reviewing student visa applications now have confirmation of the authenticity of an I-20 and no longer have to question it. Although it is difficult to collect empirical data on this subject, we believe that the elimination of improperly completed or possibly fraudulent I-20 documents actually speeds the processing of a student visa application.

 

Addressing Misperceptions

Visa applications worldwide declined immediately after September 11, 2001, and eventually dropped by approximately 30 percent. While the number of applications decreased, the overall visa refusal rate remained almost constant. However, the decline in applications, coupled with processing delays and more visible security measures, such as the expanded use of personal interviews, contributed to a perception among the business, travel and academic communities that visa processing impedes, rather than facilitates legitimate travel to the United States.

 

This perception was exacerbated by studies on travel to the United States and negative anecdotes reported in the media. For example, several surveys on international students showed decreasing numbers of applications and enrollment in U.S. universities. News accounts report that the United States is somehow less welcoming to foreign students and often point to U.S. visa processing as a barrier to study in the U.S. As recently as March 9, the Council of Graduate Schools issued a press release regarding a decline in international graduate school applications from 2004 to 2005.

 

Although there have been changes to the way in which visas are processed, the overall visa refusal rate has remained virtually constant since prior to September 11, 2001. In fact, our own statistics comparing visa applications in October 2003 through January 2004 with October 2004 through January 2005 show that the percentage of student visa applicants received visas is increasing. For example, we issued 64,912 student (F-1) visas from October 1, 2004 to February 28, 2005, and 63,900 during the same period the previous year. During that time, the refusal rate for this category of applicants dropped from 27 percent to 25 percent. Issuances to exchange visitors (J-1) are also on the rise, from 62,909 issued from October 1, 2003 to February 28, 2004, to 69,802 visas issued from October 1, 2004 to February 28, 2005.

Student visa applicants continue to be subject to Section 214(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which requires that the applicant possess a residence in a foreign country that he has no intention of abandoning. State Department regulations require that a consular officer be satisfied that, at the time of a visa application, the student has a residence abroad, has no immediate intention of abandoning that residence, and intends to depart the United States upon the termination of his student status. We recognize that the context of the residence abroad requirement for student applicants differs significantly from that of applicants for other kinds of temporary visas, since students may not have the same property, employment, and family obligations of other temporary visa applicants. Accordingly, we have updated our regulatory guidance clarifying that it is natural for students not to possess the same ties to a residence abroad that might be present in other cases. Consular officers are instructed that they must be satisfied at the time of the application that a student possesses the present intent to depart the U.S. at the conclusion of his or her studies. That this intention is subject to change or even likely to change is not a sufficient reason to refuse a visa.

 

We have been battling these and other misperceptions with an aggressive public outreach campaign. We have also consulted closely with the academic 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.

 

Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Maura Harty has spoken to a number of academic audiences over the past two years, and takes every opportunity to reach out to international student audiences during her official travel overseas. Most recently, she addressed a group of two hundred students at Beijing University and encouraged them to study in the United States. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services Janice Jacobs has spoken to academic associations and student groups dozens of times on this important issue. In fact, on February 23, she addressed over 350 students at the University of Maryland on one stop of our extensive domestic outreach program. Ambassadors and other officials lead our outreach efforts overseas, speaking to student groups and placing op-ed articles in local newspapers to encourage students to apply to U.S. academic institutions.

 

Our efforts will continue. We recognize that we must work with the academic community to counter lingering misperceptions about the visa process, and have encouraged academic organizations to acknowledge the progress that we have made as a way of attracting students to the United States. In the meantime, we will continue to support what we hope will be a resurgence of student visa applicants by making sure that legitimate students receive visas in a timely manner.

I have brought with me a summary of the improvements we have made to the visa process that benefit legitimate international students, as well as our most recent statistics showing the improvement in the processing time for cases that involve technology transfer concerns which I will leave with you and your staff. Now I am happy to answer your questions.