The Foreign Service Journal, May 2005

Send your letters to: journal@afsa.org. Note that all letters are subject to editing for style, format and length. States. Remember that the U.S. dol- lar exchange rate is our disadvan- tage, not theirs. Charging this fee may even reduce the tremendous pressures of having consular officers interview up to a thousand visa applicants a day. When many of the applicants are repeaters with only their time to lose, perhaps a high application fee will discourage those who would most likely never be eli- gible for a visa. Let’s look upon the cost of a visa application as a lottery ticket. For some, the investment may prove to be a winner. For the unlucky, if they can afford it and believe that they are truly eligible, they can try again. As for the supposition that a $100 fee will discourage visitors from abroad, recent articles in the Los Angeles Times indicate otherwise. Tourism to California this year is expected to surpass all records. As for students and other qualified applicants, the genuine non-immi- grant will find a way to get here. Whether the fee is an administrative device or a security deterrent, times have changed since 9/11. We in the U.S. have felt the consequences of less-than-thorough visa interviews. A three-minute confrontation with a nervous applicant is fair to no one. And when a visa is issued under these circumstances to a person who may later fly a jumbo jet into New York towers (with one of my school- mates aboard no less), one is most likely to opt for different visa mea- sures. Donald R. Tremblay FSO, retired Santa Monica, Calif. ■ M A Y 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 11 L E T T E R S