The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

Some Things Don’t Change One thing that hasn’t changed since 9/11 is the lob- bying efforts of travel and business industry groups, as well as colleges and universities, to encourage consular affairs to lower barriers to travelers. In June, a coali- tion of business groups including the Aerospace Industries Association, the American Council on International Personnel and the National Foreign Trade Council, issued a report saying that delays in visa processing have cost U.S. exporters more than $30 bil- lion since 2002. Of the 734 companies that responded to a survey commissioned by the coalition, 73 percent said they had experienced problems in the processing of business travel visas, including unexpected delays and denials; 60 percent said they had paid a price for processing delays, including lost sales and increased costs associated with moving personnel abroad to avoid travel problems; and 51 percent said that the problem was getting worse, not better. “When legitimate foreign business executives and vital international customers cannot enter the U.S. to conduct normal business, it is our companies, our workers, our economy, and our international relations that pay the price,” said National Foreign Trade Council President Bill Reinsch in a statement announcing the survey. The report recommended that reputable, well-known businesses be granted “gold card” status, allowing their business travelers access to expedited procedures; and that CA grant visas allowing business travelers to travel to the United States multi- ple times without renewing. Theresa Brown, executive director of Americans for Better Borders, a business advocacy group affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says that foreign business travelers have been offended by the finger- print requirement. Meanwhile, in May, a group of 25 science and higher education organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Council on Education, sent a letter to the White House, the FBI, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security, arguing that the more stringent visa process was interfering with legitimate research and scholarship. “The U.S. cannot hope to maintain its present scientific and economic leadership position if it becomes isolated from the rest of the world,” the letter said. The group recommended that visas be granted to students and scholars for longer periods of time to allow them to complete a course of study without hav- ing to apply for a visa renewal. It also said that students should be allowed to begin the process before taking temporary trips outside the United States, and that CA should provide applicants with a means of checking their status. Visa applicants waiting more than 30 days should be moved to the front of the waiting list, the group said. A Delicate Balance The primary cause of delays in student visa process- ing, according to the GAO, is the increased use of Visas Mantis checks, instituted after the 9/11 attacks. Students and scholars who plan to conduct research in a number of scientific disciplines deemed important to national security must undergo these additional checks. In the past, the FBI had 30 days to process the requests from Consular Affairs, but now the FBI must sign off on all approved visas no matter how long it takes. That’s caused some headaches. The GAO found, for example, that improperly formatted requests had not gotten to the FBI and delayed processing in some cases for weeks. Based on a random sample of Visas Mantis cases between April and June 2003, the GAO found that it took an average of 67 days for the security check to be processed. GAO auditors visited consular posts in China, India and Russia, and found that consular offi- cers were often confused about when to apply Visas Mantis checks. Nor did they receive consistent or timely feedback on whether they were providing enough information in the security review requests they sent back to Washington. In some cases, appli- cants routinely waited two to three weeks just for an interview, with some cooling their heels for more than three months for a response. But now, Jacobs says, CA’s $1 million investment in better technology is paying off with fewer errors in security review requests sent to the FBI, and the new standard operating procedures implemented by Harty have cleared up confusion over how to process Visas Mantis cases. A newly established team within CA in Washington ensures that applications flow more smoothly. Now, Jacobs says, 80 percent of all Visas Mantis checks are conducted within 30 days. The statistics, though, still bear out some of the F O C U S 28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4