The Foreign Service Journal, December 2022

40 DECEMBER 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL W. Averell Harriman Award for Constructive Dissent by an Entry-Level Foreign Service Officer Michael White Improving Visa Adjudication, Protecting Workers’ Rights A s a first-tour officer in Her- mosillo, Michael White demonstrated the integrity to highlight major vulnerabilities in Mission Mexico’s visa policy and adjudication standards for TN visas. This narrow visa category, also known as the NAFTA Professional Visa and based on what is now named the U.S.- Mexico-Canada Agreement, allows specialized professionals in Mexico to work in the U.S. in prear- ranged business activities. In the fall of 2020, a review of TN visas across Mission Mexico exposed inconsistent adjudication standards and lack of a policy to inform TN applicants of their labor rights. As part of a TN visa working group that tried to harmonize these standards, Mr. White highlighted the problems and proposed pathways to rectify them to the working group and Mission Mexico leadership. For example, posts across Mexico saw large variations in approval rates for TN applicants—particularly those going to work in the pork, dairy, aviation, and auto industries. The lack of guidance and harmonized standards resulted in some unquali- fied applicants being issued visas while other qualified applicants were denied. Mr. White’s suggestions to formalize TN visa adjudication prac- tices and inform applicants of labor rights, particularly to prevent human trafficking, faced managerial and bureaucratic hurdles. Few serious actions were taken to address the growing evidence of inconsistent standards, which allowed fraudulent and exploitative companies to use vague categories such as “scientific techni- cian” and “animal breeder” to recruit unqualified applicants for maintenance and farmwork. Adjudicators at Mission Mexico approved these visas due to lack of guidance, and many workers who received themwere subsequently thrust into misrepresented jobs and, in some cases, forced labor and abuse. Further, Mr. White highlighted to post leadership that although not required by the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM), TN visa appli- Michael White. involved, as some in senior positions continually dismissed the problem and rebuffed proposed improvements to the system. “I ammost perplexed as to why we have resisted so,” he tells the Journal . “At first, some in the department misunderstood the scope of the problem, believing that the number of potentially covered offenders under IML was 5,000 and not 500,000. But even after we saw the true number, no progress was made.” In November 2021, the Policy Planning Staff responded to his dissent cable, acknowledging the current gaps in policy. Although insufficient space on paper applications remains the justification for omitting a sex offender registration status ques- tion, the department has pledged to integrate requirements for IML into the passport application modernization process when it transitions to online applications. Mr. May hopes that further action will follow. “To save kids from sexual assault and exploitation, yes, I think adding an extra page to passport applications would be worth it,” he says. “Every year, we publish a Trafficking in Persons [TIP] report, holding other countries accountable for not doing enough to protect people from exploitation. And yet for all the billions we spend to reduce child sexual exploitation, we in the department have failed children over the past five years, and that is largely due to our own apathy.” Thanks to Mr. May’s courage to speak up and relentlessness in pursuing improvements to the system, the department is at last working to address vulnerabilities that limit prevention efforts and put children at risk due to the incomplete implementation of IML. For example, the department’s passport application infor- mation website now suggests that offenders should self-declare, a change that has reportedly boosted the number of self-declara- tions from 25 to 250 per year. Though he says he is grateful for some advancements, “I still think we need to do more—and do it immediately—to protect children,” he adds. Steven May is currently based in London where he works as the deputy regional security officer. He previously served in Embassy Baghdad from 2020 to 2022, most recently as chief of two branches: embassy security forces, and investigations and vetting. With these portfolios, he was the contracting officer’s representa- tive for the State Department’s largest security contract, oversee- ing 1,300 guards. He has also served in the DSS San Francisco field office, Kuwait City, Moscow, Criminal Fraud Investigations in Washington, D.C., Riyadh, Kandahar, Milan, and Karachi. Prior to joining the State Department as a special agent in 2002, Mr. May was an officer with the Houston Police Department.