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CREATING SECURE BORDERS AND OPEN DOORS:

A REVIEW OF DHS-STATE COLLABORATION ON

U.S. VISA POLICY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 9, 2004

Serial No. 108–240

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on September 9, 2004 ....................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Ervin, Clark Kent, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland

Security .......................................................................................................... 38

Jacobs, Janice, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services, U.S. Department of State .......................................................................................... 14

Verdery, C. Stewart, Jr., Assistant Secretary for Border and Transportation Security Policy and Planning, U.S. Department of Homeland

Security .......................................................................................................... 24

Williams-Bridgers, Jacquelyn L., Managing Director, International Affairs and Trade Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office, accompanied by Randolph Hite, Director of Information Technology Architecture and Systems Issues ............................................................................... 71

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 12

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia:

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4

Testimony of the U.S. Chamber ............................................................... 50

Ervin, Clark Kent, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland

Security, prepared statement of .................................................................. 40

Jacobs, Janice, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services, U.S. Department of State, prepared statement of .................................................. 17

Verdery, C. Stewart, Jr., Assistant Secretary for Border and Transportation Security Policy and Planning, U.S. Department of Homeland

Security, prepared statement of .................................................................. 27

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 91

Williams-Bridgers, Jacquelyn L., Managing Director, International Affairs and Trade Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 74

(1)

CREATING SECURE BORDERS AND OPEN

DOORS: A REVIEW OF DHS-STATE COLLABORATION ON U.S. VISA POLICY

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman

of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis of Virginia, Souder, Ose,

Maloney, Cummings, Kucinich, Tierney, Van Hollen, Ruppersberger, Norton, and McCollum.

Staff present: Melissa Wojciak, staff director; David Marin, deputy staff director/communications director; Keith Ausbrook, chief

counsel; Ellen Brown, legislative director and senior policy counsel;

Jennifer Safavian, chief counsel for oversight and investigations;

David Young and Jim Moore, counsels; Robert White, press secretary; Drew Crockett, deputy director of communications; John

Cuaderes, senior professional staff member; Teresa Austin, chief

clerk; Sarah Dorsie, deputy clerk; Corinne Zaccagnini, chief information officer; Michael Yeager, minority deputy chief counsel;

Earley Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Good morning. A quorum being present,

the Committee on Government Reform will come to order.

I want to welcome everybody to today’s hearing, which continues

the committee’s history of oversight hearings on U.S. visa policy.

The committee has previously reviewed visa backlog issues and the

implementation of the US-VISIT program. This hearing will focus

on the collaboration between the Department of Homeland Security

and the State Department in the establishment and implementation of U.S. visa policy.

We all agree that homeland security is a priority and that, as a

result of the acts of September 11th, we need to closely scrutinize

visitors to our country. This tighter scrutiny has undoubtedly been

a major contributing factor to the increase in visa application and

processing delays around the world.

Lest we think this is a trivial matter, next to issues concerning

Social Security, visa delays tend to be the most requested issue

when it comes to casework within our districts. We have heard in

prior hearings about the serious impact visa delays have on U.S.

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businesses, on tourism, institutions of higher learning, the science

community, and many others.

Today, however, the committee will examine the collaboration between the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department in the establishment and implementation of U.S. visa policy,

and how this collaboration is mitigating the delays to facilitate

business and tourism while at the same time ensuring security.

Section 428 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 grants DHS

the authority to set policy regarding the granting and issuing of

visa. Nearly a year ago, DHS and State announced the completion

of a Memorandum of Understanding that clarifies the roles of both

agencies and established mechanisms through which interagency

concerns could be addressed.

In addition to the requirements set out under Section 428, a

number of policy changes directed by both agency decisions and

statutory requirements have changed the way individuals seek

visas to travel to the United States. These changes are primarily

in the information that is collected in the visa applications and the

procedures by which visa applications are adjudicated. Despite the

fact that DHS is still in its infancy and State has had over two centuries to practice its mission, it is essential that the two departments bring together their personnel, their information and expertise to secure the borders while facilitating the travel of legitimate

visitors.

The hearing will examine the collaboration between DHS and

State, and the challenges facing the two departments in a number

of areas, including the requirements for DHS to deploy visa security officers as an added security component to the visa adjudication process. Although these officers were statutorily required to be

installed in Saudi Arabia to review all visa applications, this specific role has been under consideration by both State and DHS.

The committee is also interested in the progress in determining

which countries may receive visa security officers in the future and

what value they will add to the visa adjudication process. The DHS

Office of Inspector General recently released a report that identified several challenges facing the Department of Homeland Security in the implementation of the Visa Security Officer program.

Particularly, the IG found that DHS faces challenges in recruiting, training, and maintaining permanent security officers in overseas posts. It is our understanding that State and DHS have established internal working groups to manage the implementation of

requirements under Section 428, and will discuss the implementation of these requirements.

In a previous hearing, the committee reviewed the visa backlog

problems resulting from the lengthy Security Advisory Opinion

process required for students, scientists, and other applicants who

travel to the United States to work or study particularly on sensitive technologies. As a result of an interagency review of the entire process, DHS and State have recently modified the process to

reduce the time required for applicants to obtain clearance from

the applicable agencies without sacrificing security.

DHS and State have collaborated in the implementation of the

US-VISIT program. State has nearly completed its installation of

equipment and software at the over 200 visa issuing posts around

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the world as part of the Visa Biometric Program. Biometric data

collected at embassies and consulates are being entered into a DHS

data base that is then used to check applicants against watch lists

and to confirm the identity of a visa holder when a visitor attempts

entry at a port of entry.

Today, the Government Accountability Office released its report

on the challenges facing the two departments in the strategic use

of the data being collected, the embassy and the consulate

workflow designs that need to be changed to optimize biometric

checks, and the ensuing facility and personnel needs that may result from the workflow design changes.

DHS and State access to lost and stolen passport information is

an important tool in preventing visa application fraud. The information is especially important in preventing imposters from entering the country via the Visa Waiver Program by assuming the citizenship of a country participating in the program.

In a previous report, the DHS Inspector General identified several challenges in collecting the data from foreign countries and

making the data accessible to the officers at the ports of entry. The

committee looks forward to hearing from State and DHS on the improvements made in this area.

Through this hearing, the committee hopes to learn about the effectiveness of the collaboration between State and DHS in developing and implementing an effective visa policy. Information sharing

is at the core of this effort. The committee also hopes to look beyond statutory requirements and deadlines to have a productive

discussion on long-term issues.

In many ways this hearing today goes to the heart of information

sharing. Information—who has it, who gets it, and who acts on it—

is paramount in protecting the homeland and facilitating travel for

legitimate purposes. Information gathered by State or DHS is only

useful as long as the other agencies are able to access and query

that information. Information stovepipes are not only inefficient,

they threaten collective security.

As we have experienced in the past, agencies not only experience

technological and resource limitations to information sharing, but

also have cultural and sometimes statutory barriers in place that

prevent useful information sharing. But we hope that is becoming

a thing of the past. I am confident that after today’s hearing we

will have a better understanding of how agencies that work together can overcome challenges, what challenges still exist, and

how information sharing is the key to successful visa policy.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for appearing before this

committee today, and I look forward to their testimony.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. I now yield to any other Members who

wish to make opening statements. Ms. McCollum.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank

you for holding this important hearing on U.S. visa policy.

Since the September 11th attacks on the United States, the security of our Nation is the most important issue facing us. Unfortunately, new visa policies and procedures have been a hardship for

foreign students, academics, scholars, and scientists who come to

the United States to teach, study, or to conduct research.

We also have foreign nations who are invited to participate in

scholarly conferences who have been affected by these policies. It

is critical that we not only closely examine the security of our country, but that we work to make changes to create a system that

works for our colleges, universities, and businesses to allow those

who have been invited to attend conferences and have been accepted to be educated in this country be able to do so.

I have spoken with college and university presidents, including

my own president, Robert Bruininks, from the University of Minnesota, President Stephen Trachtenberg from George Washington

University, and many others. These leaders in education are becoming more and more concerned that the world’s brightest and

most talented individuals are increasingly avoiding the United

States to pursue educational opportunities and professional conferences in other countries.

I want to bring to the committee’s attention a recent survey of

the council of 113 graduate schools that indicated over 90 percent

of the schools responding show that they had major decreases in

international graduate student applications for 2004. The 600,000

international students studying in the United States each year contribute more than $12 billion to the U.S. economy. Not only from

a scholarly, but from an economic perspective, our colleges and universities are concerned about the declining international student

applications.

The major factor in this disturbing trend is post-September 11th

visa application and approval process. This process does not allow

for the screening of students, scholars, and scientists in an effective, efficient and timely manner. I have spoken with many of our

Ambassadors in foreign countries. They are concerned about the

process, as well as Secretary of State Colin Powell. We need a visa

process that protects Americans, but we also need a process that

does not disadvantage U.S. interests in this highly competitive

global marketplace for intellectual capacity.

The former director of the CIA and current president of Texas

A&M University, Robert M. Gates, articulates this well in a New

York Times editorial dated March 31, 2004: ‘‘We simply cannot tolerate a visa process that fails to differentiate quickly and accurately between legitimate scholars and students and those individuals who may pose a genuine risk to our security.’’

This country’s global leadership is at risk. For generations future

leaders in government, industry, and scientists have been educated

and trained at U.S. colleges and universities. These students, scholars, and scientists not only return home with a degree, technical

training or professional experience, but they also return home a

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strong friend of the United States and the people of the United

States.

Over the years, millions of these special relationships have yielded profound diplomatic, economic and cultural benefit to the United

States and the world. For example, the Secretary General of the

United Nations, Kofi Annan, completed his undergraduate work at

McAllister College in St. Paul, MN, and we are well aware of his

relationship that was started at a U.S. higher education institution

over 40 years ago.

At this moment in our Nation’s history, cross-cultural understanding and global relations are critical to the world and critical

to our safety. Now is not the time to discourage or dissuade the

world’s future decisionmakers from studying, teaching, or conducting research in the United States.

In response to a question I asked the 9/11 Commission during an

international relations hearing on August 19th, Susan Ginsburg,

the senior counsel to 9/11 Commission, stated: ‘‘We didn’t see a lot

of results, security benefits, from some of the measures put in place

immediately after 9/11.’’

Mr. Chair, I look forward to today’s testimony. I had proposed a

joint hearing between the House Education and Workforce, and the

International Relations Committee addressing the problems facing

international students. Unfortunately, the chairman of the House

Education and Workforce Committee did not see this as an important enough issue to examine. So I am pleased that this committee

is looking at all visa processes.

Thank you again very much for this hearing, Mr. Chair.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you, Ms. McCollum.

Mr. Souder, any opening comments?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, I would like to make a few comments.

One, some of the history of the problem that you are highlighting

in your testimony today originally started in this committee as a

reaction to the failures of the visa program in the State Department, and when we reorganized there was a very hot debate over

whether this should be left in the State Department at all.

The State Department, I believe, and those of us who sought a

compromise, made a compelling case that this was an entry level

position for the State Department, and without that position it

would be very difficult to recruit overseas and staff the State Department effectively; that sometimes State objections to individuals

were not on security reasons, and so they had a compelling interest

to stay involved.

But what that meant is we laid over the top of that a DHS person there too, so that either agency in effect could flag and stop a

person. If there were State Department interests, if there were a

national security interest, they could overlap.

Now, I think some of what I was just briefly reading suggests

that clearly DHS is behind; they don’t have language people that

were trained in languages when we entered into this. Now, presumably their data base is better than what we had in the State

Department. The plain fact is what we were faced with, the U.S.

Congress, was a US-VISIT program that was fatally flawed and not

working to protect the interest of the United States.

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So now we need to look—and this is what this hearing process

is—to figure out a way to integrate two departments and to do this

in a long-term beneficial way to the United States that protects

both State Department interests as far as other types of foreign

policies and other types of clearance types of things, as well as national security interests. And maybe they can blend over time and

maybe they can’t be blended; that is what this committee came to

a conclusion before. Otherwise, it would have merely been taken

from the Department of State and put in Homeland Security.

But I understand the difficulty that this has been putting, particularly in certain areas of the world. The University of Notre

Dame in Indiana has a very high profile case right now of a visiting professor, and it presents all kinds of problems when the information that has been gleaned may or may not want to be released

for multiple purposes, and I don’t know an easy way to work

through this, and I am interested in the comments.

And if I could make a side comment that doesn’t directly relate

to this regarding one problem on entry-exit visits for U.S. citizens

that I would like DHS to look at. Congressman Joe Pitts and I, as

well as a number of Congressmen in Ohio, represent the largest

Amish populations in the United States. It is becoming an increasing problem at Windsor and Niagara Falls because in their religion

they believe a photo is a graven image, and it is potentially, so far

it is up almost to the individual agent, whether he waives that if

he shows other types of ID.

But in talking to a number of Amish, we may be able to work

out something with a fingerprint. But clearly this is going to be,

as we get better exit systems for the U.S. citizens, we are going to

have to address that one subgroup that often goes into Southern

Canada across that border who don’t believe in photos, which

leaves our system vulnerable to penetration if somebody disguises

themselves if we don’t address it.

And I think that community is willing to look at that, but it is

one that is in two of the biggest border crossings where we have

risk zones, at Buffalo, Niagara Falls and at Detroit, a question we

have to work through.

I thank the chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Do any other Members wish to make opening statements?

Yes, sir, Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Thank you, Mr. Davis, for holding this

hearing.

It is our fundamental duty to preserve the openness that so

many have sought upon our shores without providing a logistical

loophole for those with negative intentions to take advantage. Only

with the truest of cooperation between the two departments can

this process create an efficient and secure visa system.

One key component of this new system is the expansion of the

DHS security reach. They augment the international experience of

the State Department with the security expertise of the Department of Homeland Security. Recruiting, training, and maintaining

such posts and positions must be held at a very high priority, as

they are front lines in the war against lax security focus.

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Not only must we learn from the past and implement for the

present, but we must also expand our vision toward the future. An

integrated personnel data collection system such as the Visa Biometric Program will facilitate the flow of information to and from

officers at both visa offices and port of entry points. This real time

information will be invaluable to the prevention of both visa and

identification fraud.

Biometric data will allow for more accurate identifications, and

we must work to optimize the system needed to ensure that this

data reaches those who need it most in the most quick and efficient

manner. Therefore, I welcome a more in-depth look at what programs have been implemented and how both departments are handling the new visa protocols.

Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

We now come to our first panel.

Mr. Cummings, any opening statements?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I have a brief statement.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Sure.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today, which will allow us to look at the processes

in place to expedite the issuing of non-immigrant visas at U.S. consulates abroad.

It is important, Mr. Chairman, that the existing collaboration between the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department regarding visas is functional, because the threat of terrorism

is at an all-time high. It is important that we are able to readily

distinguish between ally and foe.

By the same token, our economy is affected greatly by the ability

to admit foreign visitors who come to this country for business,

pleasure, students or scholars. America has always been, and must

remain, a country that is welcoming to visitors and immigrants

who can enrich the diverse culture of the United States.

In a previous hearing, ‘‘America’s New Welcome Mat: A Look at

the Goals and Challenges of the US-VISIT Program,’’ our committee learned about the plans for the newly implemented entry-exit

tracking program, US-VISIT. At that time we discussed several

challenges of the program, such as the visa backlog, which had

been attributed to the lengthy security process, as well as the possibility that innocent visitors might be detained at immigration

ports of entry because of inaccurate and outdated information.

I understand that a DHS and State Department collaboration

has resulted in a modification of the visa application procedure for

security clearance that will reduce the amount of time needed to

process the applications. I applaud DHS and the State Department

for your efforts, and look forward to hearing about the processes

both agencies took in order to make this improvement possible. I

also hope that similar processes are being put into place to minimize the delays foreign business travelers, students and scholars

are experiencing as well.

At today’s hearing I anticipate that the DHS will update the

committee on its overall progress in visa policy and oversight, and

that the State Department will give an update on its implementation on fingerprinting, interviewing, and screening requirements

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for visa applications. I look forward to the hearing and the testimony.

Mr. Chairman, again, I thank you for holding this hearing, and

with that I yield back.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

We will now move to our first panel of witnesses. Thanks for

bearing with us.

I want to welcome the Honorable Janice Jacobs, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services for the Department of State; the

Honorable C. Stewart Verdery, Jr., the Assistant Secretary for Border and Transportation Security Policy and Planning for the Department of Homeland Security; and the Honorable Clark Kent

Ervin, the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security.

It is our policy that we swear everybody in before you testify. If

you would rise with me and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

In order to allow time for questions, your entire statement is in

the record, and the staff and members have reviewed that for our

questions, but we would like to try to keep the testimony as close

to 5 minutes as we can.

We have a light in front of you. It will be green for the first 4

minutes, yellow for the 5th minute, and then it turns red. When

you see it turn red, if you can just start to summarize at that point,

it will be helpful. We won’t hold you strictly to it because we want

to make sure you have an opportunity to make your case. We are

just delighted to have you here today.

Ms. Jacobs, we will start with you. And thanks for bearing with

us and being here today.

STATEMENT OF JANICE JACOBS, DEPUTY ASSISTANT

SECRETARY FOR VISA SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Ms. JACOBS. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank

you for inviting me to testify on the cooperation between the State

Department and the Department of Homeland Security on the implementation of U.S. visa policy. We are very pleased to review the

tremendous progress we have made in the past year. Working together with the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, we have improved the visa process and our ability to combat

terrorism through enhanced information and data sharing, the use

of biometric in travel documents, and an improved security clearance process.

Since September 11, the Department, working with other agencies, has made significant improvements to our ability to share information. We now have 19.6 million records in our consular lookout system on people potentially ineligible to receive visas, nearly

triple what we had prior to September 11.

We are providing Customs and Border Protection [CBP], inspectors at ports of entry with electronic non-immigrant and immigrant

visa data so that they can view the electronic files we have of every

visa passenger entering the United States. We are also sharing our

consular data base with the National Targeting Center [NTC], a

24/7 operation of Customs and Border Protection within DHS. We

have also offered to provide CBP secondary inspectors with direct

access to our Consular Consolidated Data base, as we have already

done at both the NTC and the Forensic Documents Laboratory.

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The Department of State also joined in the establishment of the

Terrorist Screening Center that integrates terrorist watch lists and

serves as the centralized point of contact for everyone from the

U.S. police officer on the beat here in the United States to the consular officer in the farthest reaches of the globe.

Together with DHS, we are creating a biometric system to track

the entry and exit of foreign visitors by using electronically

scanned fingerprints and photographs. I am pleased to report that

the program is now operational at more than 201 posts. The program will be in effect at all 211 visa adjudicating posts by October

26th of this year.

We have made great progress in improving the interagency security clearance process in recent months by moving from a paperbased system to electronic transmission. As security advisory opinion requests and responses now flow electronically, there is no

longer any possibility that a case may get lost.

Visa’s Mantis procedures have also been greatly streamlined. The

effect has been to clear up many longstanding cases. The vast majority of Mantis cases are now being turned around within 30 days.

The State Department is also working closely with DHS and

other agencies as part of an Interagency Working Group to review

information on Visa Waiver Program countries. As part of that

process, we are working together with DHS in the development and

implementation of the U.S. Biometric Passport Program in conjunction with the U.S. biometric passport requirements of VWP countries.

Almost 1 year ago, the Departments of State and Homeland Security signed a Memorandum of Understanding based on Section

428 of the Homeland Security Act. The MOU is our road map for

implementing Section 428, which includes the placement of Visa

Security Officers in selected posts.

Currently, the consular sections in Riyadh and Jeddah are the

only ones with Visa Security Officers, but we expect future deployments in the near future to additional countries. In Riyadh and

Jeddah we have worked closely with DHS to ensure that the officers posted there were welcomed into the embassy family. We expect this level of cooperation to exist when DHS officers take up

their duties at other embassies.

We are working closely with DHS to establish responsibilities for

Visa Security Officers and ensuring that Chiefs of Mission have the

information they need to make an appropriate decision on officer

staffing at their missions in accordance with NSDD–38.

We are also working to implement other parts of the MOU. For

example, the MOU calls for DHS officers to provide training to consular officers in certain areas such as counter-terrorism, anti-fraud

techniques, etc. To this end, at least two DHS officers will soon attend the visa portions of the consular training curriculum at the

Foreign Service Institute. They will then be able to develop training materials to meet any needs they determine are not being met

now.

With our partner agencies in the U.S. Government, we continue

to seek better ways to make our Nation’s borders more secure.

Working together, our goal is to establish procedures that will provide a sound basis for maintaining an effective, efficient visa procVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:00 Jan 10, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97229.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
16

ess that secures America’s borders from external threats while continuing to promote legitimate travel to the United States.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jacobs follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Verdery.

STATEMENT OF C. STEWART VERDERY, JR., ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR BORDER AND TRANSPORTATION SECURITY

POLICY AND PLANNING, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND

SECURITY

Mr. VERDERY. Good morning, Chairman Davis and members of

the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to present the

progress that the Border and Transportation Security Directorate

has made in fulfilling the visa responsibilities assigned to us in the

Homeland Security Act.

Befiting of the excellent partnership that we have developed with

the Department of State, I would like to associate myself with the

remarks just made by Ms. Jacobs. In addition, my written testimony goes into great deal into many of the important issues raised

in your opening statement.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I have just been corrected. It is Verdery.

I know that. That was the Amherst pronunciation I was giving,

just to let you know that.

Mr. VERDERY. You know I am a Williams grad.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I knew that. But I have an Amherst grad

next to me, too, so it is two against one today. And I hope you are

prepared for the questions.

Mr. VERDERY. Well, you are on the dais.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK.

Mr. VERDERY. As I was saying, Mr. Chairman, my written testimony speaks in great detail to many of the important issues raised

in your opening statement, including how we have stationed Visa

Security Officers overseas, how we are engaging in a security advisory opinion process in Washington, our assumption of lead responsibility for broad visa policy determinations, and how we are managing the Visa Waiver Program.

I would like to use my brief time here, the 5-minutes or so, to

talk about how we are meshing these visa-related responsibilities

with our broader efforts to secure international travel and to deploy an effective entry-exit system at our ports of entry.

The 9/11 Commission has reported in painstaking detail how the

visa issuance process was exploited to facilitate the September 11th

attacks on the United States. As Ms. Jacobs has described, BTS

has been working with the Department of State and other departments to ensure that visas are only issued to those eligible consistent with applicable law and following an appropriate security

check.

At the same time we recognize that the ability of legitimate students, scientists, tourists, or business partners to visit the United

States is crucial to our society. If that travel is disrupted, either

because people are unfairly rejected for a visa or because they believe travel to the United States is too inconvenient, we will experience devastating effects on our economy in the short run.

And perhaps equally as important, in the long run the ability of

foreign visitors to come to this country is crucial to spreading our

democratic ideals, furthering scientific development, and promoting

the image of America overseas.

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BTS is responsible for overall policy oversight in DHS’s implementation of Section 428 following the Memorandum of Understanding between DHS and the Department of State. Secretary

Ridge has assigned operational responsibility to the Visa Security

Unit within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE].

Policy development for visa security matters has largely been assigned to my office, the BTS Office of Policy and Planning, working

where appropriate with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

and reporting to your former colleague, Under Secretary Hutchinson.

Despite difficult budgetary challenges, BTS has made substantial

progress in implementing Section 428 of the Homeland Security

Act. As was mentioned, we have established and maintained visa

security operations at two posts in Saudi Arabia, which now review

100 percent of applications in that country. We have also evaluated

and selected five overseas posts for the next expansion of the VSU.

BTS respects the report prepared by Mr. Ervin’s Office of the Inspector General. We essentially agree with the 12 recommendations to enhance implementation of our Section 428 responsibilities,

including those related to personnel selection and training, and selection to posts overseas. We are pleased that the OIG has designated all of its recommendations either closed or resolved.

In sum, the deployment of Visa Security Officers to Saudi Arabia

has yielded the security benefits that Congress envisioned when it

crafted the Homeland Security Act. With the enactment of the fiscal year 2005 budget in the coming weeks, hopefully, the program

will receive much-needed financial stability and certainty as we expand our deployments and transition to full-time employees.

The VSU also has been tasked to participate in DOS’s SAO process, providing the interagency review of visa applications selected

because of risk assessments or because of scrutiny from the consular official. In coming weeks, BTS plans to deploy officers to the

SAO process to resolve difficult or disputed cases.

But even as we engage in handling particular SAO cases, we

have been extremely active in the broader field of visa policy and,

of course, under the MOU, we can establish visa policy and have

final authority over DOS-initiated visa guidance. We have gone

through a comprehensive review of these programs, meeting with

the scientific community, business operations, others, and we have

heard their message loud and clear that improvements need to be

made, and you are seeing those improvements, wait times are dropping.

The times of the applications falling into no man’s land are

quickly coming to a close. And I will just quote the director of

Yale’s Office of International Students who was quoted recently as

saying that the administration, State Department, and DHS are

listening very carefully to their concerns.

Ms. Jacobs talked about the Visa Waiver Program reviews. I

won’t take time here to do that. I can tell you, though, that these

reviews that are ongoing in 25 countries are not a cursory process,

these are active law enforcement-based investigations of the meeting of the statutory criteria that Congress has enacted, and those

reviews will be completed by October.

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As important as the visa process is, however, it is not the only

mechanism that we use for screening for potential terrorists or

criminals who might attempt travel to the United States. One of

the keys for security and travel facilitation is knowing who is getting on the plane, especially for visa waiver travelers, so that the

first line of defense is not when the passenger arrives at a U.S. airport. As you know, in May we finalized an important agreement

with the European Union allowing for transfer of so-called passenger name record information to us for vetting purposes for international flights, and this PNR information is melded with the APIS

information we have received from passports as planes are coming

in air to the United States, vetting at the National Targeting Center run by Customs and Border Protection. We can go into this in

more detail. We will be coming out with further guidance on APIS

regulations in the near future, and we have promised, as part of

the secure flight announcement last month, that we will be promulgating a rule later this fall requiring the APIS information before

wheels up so that we can do better vetting of flights before they

take off from foreign airports bound for the United States. We are

also piloting the Immigration Security Initiative by placing inspectors overseas in key hub airports to assist airlines in reviewing

passengers with potential terrorist ties or with fraudulent travel

documents.

If I could just close, the US-VISIT program, the SEVIS student

program, these are obviously signature achievements of DHS. They

have been developed in very close partnership with the Department

of State. In fact, the US-VISIT program and the Bio Visa Program

are essentially one and the same in terms of the information collected and the linkages back and forth to make sure that information is being shared appropriately. I think the current statistics, we

processed about 8 million foreign visitors through US-VISIT without impacting wait times; we have matched about 790 persons

against criminal data, prevented 264 known or suspected criminals

from entering the country, another about 906 people have been

matched while applying for a visa overseas based on the biometric

parts of the Bio Visa and US-VISIT system.

To close, the President’s recent issuance of Homeland Security

Presidential Directive 11 related to screening provides a formal

structure to further coordinate and harmonize these screening programs. We recognize that much work remains to be done to create

the 21st century borders that our citizens deserve to protect the

homeland and to facilitate legitimate trade and travel.

I want to thank this committee for its support in this most important endeavor. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Verdery follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Ervin, thanks for being with us.

STATEMENT OF CLARK KENT ERVIN, INSPECTOR GENERAL,

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Mr. ERVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for this opportunity to appear today to discuss the findings

of two of our recent reviews. The first concerns the assignment pursuant to Section 428 of the Homeland Security Act of Department

of Homeland Security personnel called Visa Security Officers

[VSOs], to Saudi Arabia initially, and eventually to other countries

around the world, and the second concerns the security implications of the Visa Waiver Program. I will confine my oral remarks

just to what we consider to be the most significant features of both

reports, since we have submitted a longer statement for the record,

as you noted.

With regard to the Section 428 report, we found that the VSO

program can enhance the security of the visa issuance process, but

that the program as presently constituted is not living up to its potential. The aim of the program is to provide a cadre of full-time

Department of Homeland Security personnel with general expertise

in law enforcement and/or intelligence and specific expertise in document fraud, interview techniques, and the language and customs

of the applicable country. These officers are to work with Department of State consular officers to ensure that visas are not issued

to known or suspected terrorists. They are also to work with host

country counterparts to develop more information that can then be

used by the embassy in the visa security process.

Unfortunately, due to funding, organizational and managerial

problems, the 10 officers who are or have been serving in Saudi

Arabia as of March 2004, when we completed our field work, have

been serving on a temporary duty [TDY], basis. Only 1 of the 10

has served for longer than 90 days. The rapid turnover and short

tenure has hampered their effectiveness. And though the act stipulated that the VSOs would be dispatched to Saudi Arabia upon ‘‘enactment,’’ the officers did not arrive in Saudi Arabia until August

2003, some 7 months after enactment.

Further, DHS has not provided the VSOs with the training in

language, fraud detection, and interview techniques required by

statute; only 1 of the 10 officers reads and speaks Arabic. We saw

firsthand, during our own visit to Saudi Arabia in March, how limited in their effectiveness the officers were who lack these skills,

because many of the documents to be reviewed were in Arabic and

many of the visa applicants to be interviewed and Saudi officials

with whom they have to work speak only Arabic. Moreover, the

VSOs lacked the budgetary, administrative, and logistical support

they needed to be fully effective in their jobs.

Additionally, we found at the time that the VSOs were spending

too much time entering visa applicant data into DHS computers

that embassy staff had already inputted into State Department

computers, limiting the time that the DHS officers could devote to

adding unique counter-terrorism value to the visa issuance process.

Finally, when we visited the embassy in Riyadh in March, we

learned that no thorough examination had yet been made of thouVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:00 Jan 10, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97229.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sands of visa applications that were submitted and approved before

September 11 to determine whether any of the applicants had ties

to any of the September 11 terrorists. We recommended that, at a

minimum, an evaluation be made by DHS, in consultation with the

State Department and the FBI, to determine whether conducting

such an examination would be cost-beneficial.

Section 428 contemplates, as you know, that VSOs will eventually be assigned to embassies and consulates throughout the world.

Before the program is expanded beyond Saudi Arabia, we believe

that the recommendations that we have made to improve the program and ensure that it meets the statutory intent should be implemented, and we commend the department for working toward

that end.

Turning briefly to the Visa Waiver Program, that program permits certain citizens from 27 countries to visit the United States

for up to 90 days for purposes of tourism or business without a

visa. While there are undeniable economic and diplomatic benefits

to the program for America, there are also security risks. In this

post-September 11 world, visa applicants are intensively scrutinized by consular officials. Most applicants nowadays are interviewed; they must submit extensive documentation; their finger

scans and photos are taken, and the finger scans are run against

key data bases; finally, all this information is instantly transmitted

to DHS port of entry inspectors.

By way of contrast, visa waiver travelers are interviewed for the

first and only time at a port of entry, little information about the

traveler is collected and maintained, and the POE inspector generally has much less familiarity than an overseas-based consular

officer with the language and documentation of such travelers.

One key recommendation that we made to strengthen the program was to apply the US-VISIT entry-exit checkout system to visa

waiver travelers as soon as possible. DHS initially exempted visa

waiver travelers from this system, which matches an entrant’s

name with a finger scan and photograph. By making this match,

DHS can catch known terrorists and criminals who use the names

of people with clear records to try to enter the country. Subsequent

to the issuance of our draft report, the department announced that

US-VISIT will be extended to visa waiver countries by the end of

this month, and we were pleased by that announcement.

To conclude, our report also focused heavily on the problem of

lost and stolen passports, particularly those from visa waiver countries. It is imperative that our recommendations in this area be implemented as quickly as possible. We found that these passports

can and are still being used to enter our country and evade the

scrutiny of the visa process, and we will be producing a separate

report on this fact in the very near future.

With that, I conclude and I welcome your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ervin follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much. I am going to start

the questioning with Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Souder, before we start, let me just

say we have received written testimony from the U.S. Chamber regarding its concerns about visa for business travelers. I ask unanimous consent this testimony be entered into the record. Without

objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. And I also ask for unanimous consent for

the record to remain open to receive a written statement by the Association of American Universities and from George Washington

University. And without objection, so ordered.

Ms. McCollum.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, I also have some college and university presidents that are sending letters.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Give it to staff. We will keep the record

open for that too. Thank you very much.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Souder, you are recognized.

Mr. SOUDER. Dr. Verdery, is that correct?

Mr. VERDERY. Mr. Verdery.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Verdery, in the Inspector General’s report, and

it has come up in a number of other hearings over time, the Inspector General’s report alleges that DHS doesn’t have a language

training program or a way to try to address this question. Have

you undertaken this in general? I know a lot of the services, even

at our borders, are contracted out when you need somebody to do

interpretation.

Is there any kind of bonus system for people to learn languages

in these at-risk countries, particularly if they are going to serve

tours of duty? What is your strategy of how to address the language problem? Right now, quite frankly, there could be packages

that are labeled anthrax, and I am not sure anybody at our borders

could read them.

Mr. VERDERY. Well, as we set about to meet the statutory requirement of having Visa Security Officers in Saudi Arabia on the

day that the Memorandum of Understanding was signed between

our Departments last September, we did not receive any funding

for this, so we had to take it out of existing budgets, and we got

very experienced law enforcement officers over there to meet that

requirement; they were on the job, have been on the job ever since.

Some of them do not speak the local language, as was recognized.

We do recognize over the long haul that this is a preference, of

course, for people to have the language in the host country. It is

difficult in some cases to find people who can do that. In addition,

the training for people to give them that language skill many times

would be longer than the tour of duty that they would be going on

until we move to the full-time employees, as I mentioned in my

statement.

Again, we are operating on TDY funds until the 2005 budget is

enacted, which we again hope will be short and soon. But we do

recognize this is a priority, it is just we have taken essentially the

people we had available to do this responsibility, and we need to

transition to the next phase of full-time employees with that capability.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, my concern is that the Department of Homeland Security needs to not only look at this in terms of the Saudi

embassy and other embassies if we in fact want to use DHS as a

resource for security purposes at these different embassies around

the world, but also at our borders.

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In other words, we have multiple language institutes that the

State Department has, that the Department of Defense has, and is

the Department of Homeland Security looking at interacting with

these agencies? Because I don’t see it just as an embassy problem

and a tour of duty there, but as we know certain border crossings

have a higher percentage of Arabic crossings and you need language training there.

At the northern border crossings it is amazing, we don’t even

have people who speak French at the Quebec border crossing. To

some degree, there needs to be more sense in the Department of

Homeland Security, and if you need money to do the training or

to send them to the State Department or Defense Department

training centers, you should specifically request that of Congress.

I also want to raise one additional point that I am sorry to have

to raise at this hearing, Mr. Ervin, but I want to put it on the

record, and that is regarding an issue that has nothing to do with

my district and nothing to do with the politics with it, but it is regarding a lighthouse transfer in North Carolina.

We have had correspondence for over a year, we have multiple

meetings for over a year, and I believe that lighthouse funds have

been hijacked by the Department of Homeland Security. They have

had two audits. It is clear to anybody who visits that lighthouse

that the lighthouse has received more dollars in repairs than were

ever taken in by any group; that they have contracted to repair the

tower, and the Department of Homeland Security has been holding

the funds.

The simple solution to this would have been to obligate those

funds for the tower. Little kids, Boy Scout groups, visitors, all

kinds of people gave the money for the lighthouse, not to have it

absconded with by the Department of Homeland Security. This is

transferring lighthouse transfer program, my legislation that

passed; it is threatening lighthouses all over the United States.

I don’t have any lighthouses in my district. The people involved

in this fight, predominantly on the side that I am representing

here, are Democrats. I don’t have a political fight in this. I believe

this is one of the biggest travesties of justice that I have seen, and

it is intimidating these groups that were intended. The Coast

Guard has hundreds of these.

The Department of Homeland Security is going to have a nightmare if every one of these things takes this kind of investigation;

if you are going to try to figure out whether the money that they

have has been used. Just obligate the funds; get it off your desk.

You have far more important things to do, as this illustrates today,

than worry about this lighthouse problem. And I understand that

we are going to get this resolved next week.

My opinion is that the two costs of these surveys should be refunded by the Federal Government. This has been a bullying tactic

and people all across the country for years have kept these lighthouse towers and buildings intact because the Federal Government

wouldn’t invest the funds. And then we pass a bill to try to do it.

To have it held up in this way has been a chilling effect across

the whole country, and the whole Nation is watching to see how

this gets resolved and whether they are going to be harassed in the

same way. The Department of Interior had signed off, the Coast

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Guard had signed off; every agency had signed off, until the IG Office came trotting in.

Now, I understand there was an investigation request out of the

committee. It was real simple. Audit was done, agencies have

cleared it. Get it out of your office. And I am looking forward to

having that done.

Mr. ERVIN. Mr. Souder, I commend you for your interest in this

issue. I want you to be assured that we share your interest in the

issue. As you say, we have been working for quite some time on

this issue, while at the same time working on counter-terrorism

issues like the ones we are discussing here today. We have been

very diligent about it.

I want to assure you we have a team of auditors and lawyers

looking at the issue. It took quite a bit of time for OBC to conduct

the required accounting. It took quite a long time for the Coast

Guard to receive that. It has taken some time for the Coast Guard

to review it. I want to assure you that it is the Coast Guard ultimately that is the decisionmaker here, not the Office of Inspector

General.

All that having been said, the Coast Guard has now, we understand, reviewed the accounting, and we will be getting that in a

very, very short period of time. We will then look at it and make

our determination, and I expect, as we have told you, that we will

be able to clear this up no later than 2 weeks, and probably sooner

than that.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to make sure that the general public understands—and this is, if this continues, going to be the worst PR

nightmare the Department of Homeland Security has ever faced to

this point. If you miss a few terrorists, it will pale in comparison

to that. But this is penny ante stuff. People drop money into jars,

they send checks to these groups, they pay for this building to keep

the towers up.

They already had audits; there are tons of paperwork that existed. Then the Department of Homeland Security required an additional audit, which is why it took so long, which is going to basically turn up the same thing that the first audit showed. This is

the most highly audited, the best organized group of any that are

managing 200 lighthouses. If you are going to do this for 200 lighthouses, instead of going after terrorists, when there is no question

that the dollars were intended for lighthouse use and all you had

to say was use it to repair the tower, which, by the way, they have

a contract on, what in the world is the problem?

And, quite frankly, this has been an embarrassment, and I hope

it gets resolved in a positive way, because otherwise what the Department of Homeland Security is going to have to do is manage

all these hundreds of lighthouses that nobody is going to want to

take because you are going to go back and give them 30,000 to

40,000. Two audits now, because they already had done one before

you got involved in it, and the second audit, it would bankrupt any

of the other groups.

This is the largest single lighthouse group in the country, and on

the verge of going bankrupt because of your harassment. And it

may be the Coast Guard, but the truth was the Coast Guard had

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already signed off on it until the Inspector General’s Office got involved, whether it was Coast Guard Inspector General or the other.

The fact is the Park Service, which manages it, and which I have

oversight of and which I serve on Resources, and I am on Homeland Security, I find this an incredible embarrassment for the Department of Homeland Security, and to take time up at a hearing

like this because I can’t get responsible answers, and only under

duress can we even get an answer, I just find appalling.

Mr. ERVIN. Well, actually, sir, not to prolong this, but we have

been in constant contact with your staff, both in writing, on the

telephone, and in person, so it is not as if you have not had an opportunity to raise this issue with us before this hearing. But, as I

say, we will be resolving it very quickly, no later than 2 weeks, and

a lot sooner than that, I expect.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. McCollum.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have two questions,

and I think you can tell from my opening statement how strongly

I feel about working together cooperatively to solve the student

visa issue. So my first question is what steps have the Department

of Homeland Security and the Department of State made to address the delays in student and scholar visa processing?

The other question that I have I will set up some information before I ask it. The Department of State currently does not provide

a new stamp for student or scholar visas. This possesses a problem

when a student, especially, who has to go home for a temporary

visit: wedding, funeral, family emergency. Such a trip home can

cause the individual to be reevaluated with new background tracks

having to be completed, and one student who was in his last year

of medical school found himself trapped back home after going back

home for a medical emergency for 4 months, disrupting his entire

medical schooling.

So we know that this is a problem and I know you are aware of

it, so I want to know what the Department of State is considering

in a process which would allow students and scholars who have already gone through a very intensive background check, that have

been granted these visas, is there a process in which they can have

their visa revalidated in the United States before traveling abroad

for personal business or to attend an international conference that

would allow them less confusion in returning back to the United

States to complete their business?

So those are my two questions, Mr. Chair.

Ms. JACOBS. Thank you very much for the question. I think that

we always enjoy an opportunity to talk about the processing of students, exchange visitors, scientists, business travelers, others

whose travel is very, very important to us. I want to say that the

State Department certainly endorses everything that has been said

here today about the importance of continuing to attract legitimate

travelers to the United States.

Secretary Powell often describes the task at hand as being an effort to maintain secure borders, open doors. And while security is

our first priority, we are working very, very hard at State and also

with the Department of Homeland Security on trying to look at the

measures that have been put into place after September 11 to

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make sure that they are targeted, that they are efficient, and, most

of all, predictable.

I think that is something that if people know what is going to

happen to them when they go in to apply for a visa, even if it sometimes, in some cases, takes a few weeks in order to actually process

the case to conclusion, as long as the process is predictable, I think

people are satisfied with that. And that is what we are working

very, very hard on.

The State Department, as far as students go, over a year ago we

sent out instructions to all of our visa processing posts, 211 posts,

telling them that they had to establish special procedures for getting students and exchange visitors in to the embassy in a timely

way so that they did not miss their programs, the beginning of

studies.

And I am happy to report that all of our posts do have in place,

in fact, special procedures to get students, especially during the

summer period, in in a timely way so that they don’t miss their fall

classes. We did this last year; it worked very well. We did it this

year; it has also worked very well.

The vast majority of students, if they are found otherwise qualified once they have their interview at the embassy, and provided

they have their documents in order and they are otherwise eligible,

get their visas very quickly. There are a few overall, in about the

7 million visas that we process each year, about 2.2 percent of that

number of all categories of applicants to include students are subject to some type of Washington clearance, a vetting back here by

agencies in Washington.

Those, I think, are the cases that have been talked a lot about

as far as delays and things being more difficult, perhaps, after September 11, and those are the very cases that we are working very,

very hard on to reduce the delays. And I am happy to say that in

almost all of these cases we are able to turn these clearances

around now in 30 days or less.

For students, research scholars, others who might be subject to

a check to guard against the transfer of sensitive technology that

is often referred to as the Visa’s Mantis program, I am happy to

say that because of changes that have been made recently, 98 percent of those cases are now being done within 30 days or less. That

is a huge improvement over where we were last year, where we

were even 6 months ago.

We also have a renewed commitment from the agencies involved

in the clearance process to turn these cases around quickly. We

have ways now, using this new electronic system that we have for

doing the name checks, of keeping track of the pending cases, and

once a case reaches a certain period of time in its processing, we

notify other agencies to tell them that the case is overdue. I think

we are having much better results.

Some of the stories that we hear from the schools and from the

business community and others I think perhaps may be based on

old cases, perhaps old information. I honestly believe that we have

turned a corner, that we are doing better, and the statistics that

we have on both numbers of applications and issuances I think verify that. Visa applications, this fiscal year compared to last fiscal

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pared to last year, up 14.6 percent. For student visas, the number

of applications up 9.4 percent, and the number of issuances to students up 11.2 percent over last year.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, if I could just ask a clarification.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You may.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Up from what year?

Ms. JACOBS. From the last fiscal year.

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Which was a negative, correct?

Ms. JACOBS. That is right. We are certainly not up to where we

were before September 11, but we are, I think, now for the first

time after September 11, starting to see the numbers go up again,

which I think is really good news.

I think also on the student front we at State, and I know Department of Homeland Security as well, have met with a number of the

academic organizations to try to explain the procedures, the things

that we are trying to do to streamline, to make them better.

I think we have had a very good and open dialog with them

about changes. We certainly have heard their concerns and tried to

address them. We will continue to look at all of these issues,

though, and work with our colleagues in the other Federal agencies, and with the schools and other organizations, in trying to

make further improvements.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. She asked a second question. We will give

you time to respond in writing to that.

Ms. JACOBS. Sure. The question of people who get a clearance

and then come here and feel that they are not able to return home

because they may be trapped for a long period of time and not able

to get back, a lot of this depends on the reciprocity schedule that

we have with any given government. In most cases students get

multiple entry visas, and what that means is that they don’t have

to go and reapply for a visa every time they leave the United

States.

For the ones who get limited visas, for example, a single-entry

visa, who are also subject to some type of name check, we have

been able to reach agreement for those who are subject to this

check, the Visa’s Mantis check for tech transfer concerns, for those

who are in a U.S. Government sponsored program who are going

to come back to the same program and there is no change in their

situation, the clearance itself is now good for a year. So those people can leave, go and apply for a visa. They don’t have to wait for

another security check; once they get their visa, they can come

back.

We are working on trying to extend those, make the clearances

valid for even longer periods of time for other categories. And with

the others who are subject to clearances, again, we have a commitment by all of the agencies involved in the process to turn these

cases around quickly.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much. Thank you.

This is a question for all panelists. I will start with you, Ms. Jacobs, first. The IG has basically noted that INS has had difficulty

getting permanent employees overseas because they didn’t want to

go there. Is there any plan to create something like the Foreign

Commercial Service or Foreign Agricultural Service to provide a career track for these Visa Security Officers?

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Ms. JACOBS. OK, well, I think I will defer to Mr. Verdery to answer that completely, but I think just in general, working with

Homeland Security, that there has been a very serious effort to try

to get Visa Security Officers overseas. We have worked very, very

closely with them to do that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. There has, but I am concerned about the

lack of a career track to make it attractive to them. And I guess

I will put it over to you, Mr. Verdery.

Mr. VERDERY. I think it is a very interesting concept. I think we

are at a more fledgling state than that. We do not, at this point,

have an army of people we need to worry about; it is a small number of individuals. We are going to be expanding in the coming

months, once the fiscal year 2005 budget comes down the pike, but

this is not such a large program at this point, where we are talking

about a large number of people.

We are really concentrating on making the Saudi operation work

well, on getting the other hub sites up and running, on getting the

D.C. operations in place, on converting the TDY individuals over to

full-time. Again, I am not sure I have gotten the point out here,

but these are very experienced law enforcement personnel that are

going over to assist essentially the entry-level folks over at the Department of State who are working on the visas, providing great

value to this process. But, again, that is kind of a longer——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. But you are making investments in these

people in language training and the like over the long term, and

I am just thinking over the long term you want to make sure that

there is an appropriate career path to attract people, go through

the kind of training they are going to need to go through this. I

know the program is in its infancy; I am just trying to look ahead

a little bit.

Mr. VERDERY. And we are trying to look ahead as well. Again,

once the funding is in place, we are actually going to be hiring fulltime people. That is a very legitimate concern we need to take into

account.

Mr. ERVIN. And I would just second that, Mr. Chairman. We recommended that, as you noted, and we think that the Department

should definitely look at that model.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I agree.

Also, the visa waiver review that is expected to be completed in

October, is it going to provide a baseline standard? And the reason

I ask that is you have some countries that, frankly, the people coming in here are not security threats. They may be threats to just

disappear illegally into the country, but I am talking about Poland,

I am talking about South Korea. These are countries, frankly, that

aren’t terrorist threats, as near as I can tell, and they have people

fighting alongside us over in Iraq and the like. I think it is important that they get a road map for what it would take to gain admission to visa entry.

I was just in Korea. One of the complaints we heard from businesses, from the government there, and what I hear back in Annandale and Fairfax and my own district is the difficulty in getting

visas for people that are not terrorist threats. There are other concerns with INS, and that is the people who come over here and not

likely to return, and we understand that.

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But if we could give these countries a road map for what it would

take to gain admission to the visa entry program, that would be

helpful. And I think after this report in October, maybe that could

be a road map for it. Can you make a comment on that?

Mr. VERDERY. Again, I think you are right. Our priority is to get

these country reviews done to make sure the countries who are already in the program are meeting their criteria, especially on lost

and stolen passports responsibilities, reporting those to us so we

can detect these people at ports of entry.

But there are other very important statutory criteria that Congress has passed about refusal rates, overstay rates, cooperation

with law enforcement and the like, all the things you would want

from a country that is given this kind of privilege. And since there

is a road map for countries to understand how they will be judged,

and once we get these reviews done over the next few weeks, we

are then going to turn to reviewing anybody else who would like

to apply.

Now, I can tell you that the criteria are fairly stringent, so I

wouldn’t want to give people false hope. But there is a process and

we will take that on once we get through these country reviews.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. My impression is that some of the criteria

are more anecdotal than they are factually based, in terms of who

we are letting in and not letting in, focusing in on younger women

coming in, that somehow we think they are more likely to disappear into the population than others, and the like. Will the data

collected from the US-VISIT be used in evaluating countries that

want to join the Visa Waiver Program?

Mr. VERDERY. Yes. The VISIT program, as you know, we are

building out the exit part of VISIT with pilot programs at several

airports right now that will give us better departure data than we

have currently so we will be able to understand overstay rates in

a more comprehensive way than we have right now. We have many

departure points to go, we have to pick a technology for the exit,

which is extremely complicated, but over time we will have much

better overstay information that would be plugged into countries

who want to apply for the Visa Waiver Program itself.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I want to put my plug in for South Korea

in particular because they have a current problem in my district

with our large population coming back and forth. I don’t think it

is a major security issue that drives it. There are some elements

of that, but getting into that peninsula is pretty tough.

Mr. VERDERY. There is both a security and a overstay issue here.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The overstay issue I think takes dominance. I think the other we can work through.

Mr. Ervin, you wanted to comment?

Mr. ERVIN. Just one quick interjection, if I may, on the issue of

countries like Poland and South Korea. I am very pleased that the

country reviews are being done by the Department; I think that is

very important. I agree that road maps should be provided for

countries like Poland and South Korea and others that desire to become part of the program.

But just a caution, and that is that it is not necessarily the case

that terrorists will always come from countries in the Middle East

or Islamic countries. Increasingly, in fact, it is likely that they will

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come from countries with which traditionally the United States has

had very good diplomatic relations from which terrorists have not

traditionally come. After all, Zacharias Moussaoui entered our

country on a French passport, and Richard Reid, the shoe bomber,

came on a British passport. So just a caution about that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Yes, but the Korean peninsula is pretty

isolated. Now, I guess in theory you could have a North Korean

come down and sneak down over the border and steal a passport,

but we could find a way around that. To get through that peninsula, it is not like it is a porous border like the French passports

where people are coming in and out.

I think, in fairness, they have troops fighting alongside us over

there, and I don’t want to do anything to discredit what that government has done and how important this could be with everything

else going on. So that’s my own view, but having been over there

and seeing the amount of trade and commerce going on, the number of people going back and forth, this would be a primary, in my

judgment, for a visa waiver, just make things a lot smoother.

But if you just let them know what criteria they have to meet,

I think they could take some internal steps to try to meet that and

hopefully meet the concerns that you have, which we think are legitimate.

Mr. ERVIN. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I am always fascinated by that subject.

Whenever you have a waiver program, you run the risk that somebody is going to impose upon nationals of another country to do

their dirty work for them.

So I think that there is always that concern, and it is sort of

tough to reconcile a waiver program if security is your issue, because you are assuming that nobody is ever going to be imposed

upon through blackmail or threats or anything like that to do

something, and it gets difficult on that.

Ms. Jacobs, the VISIT program, there has been criticism in the

past of the fact that the data bases were so large and had gotten

some inaccurate data in the past that had a lot of dated information, and now we have added millions to it. Can you tell me what

the report is on false positives? Are we getting a lot of false

positives? Has that issue been resolved favorably?

Mr. VERDERY. I think that actually probably falls more in my

camp, Congressman. There are false positives where the fingerprint does bring up somebody else, but it is extremely low, in the

one-tenth of 1 percent kind of phaseout of the 8 million, and they

are being resolved within a few minutes.

We have a pretty robust privacy policy within US-VISIT which

we run, and to date there have been very few complaints. People

have actually found the finger scanning, as we like to call it, fairly

innocuous, and we have almost no privacy complaints. People see

it as a great security measure. It hasn’t increased the waits at all.

Mr. TIERNEY. Can either you or Ms. Jacobs tell me what was the

delay on the Memorandum of Understanding? Why did it take so

long to get that document done?

65

Mr. VERDERY. It is just extremely complicated on dividing up the

responsibilities between the oversight mechanism that we play,

both in Washington and overseas, and the operational responsibilities for Ms. Jacobs’ consular officials and some of the touchy issues

on the recognition of their diplomatic needs and these things. So

this was taking some of our best lawyers, some of our best policy

folks to get it done, and we think it has worked well.

I wouldn’t want the hearing to close without saying that the

point here is cooperation. There are probably no two departments

I know of that cooperate better than we do. There is no Federal official I talk to more than Janice, and we have an incredibly strong

relationship on the visa program, on VISIT, and how they mesh together, so I think it is working very well.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Ervin’s study indicates that many of the things

that needed to be done could have been done prior to that Memorandum of Understanding being done. Was there a reason for the

delay at the Department of Homeland Security in implementing

what it could have done without the agreement?

Mr. VERDERY. I think we have a disagreement over the legalisms

here as to when our officers were required to be deployed to Saudi

Arabia, I think our lawyers and his lawyers disagree about the

exact date. In our view it wouldn’t have made a whole lot of sense

to send them over there without having the legal framework for

providing their ability to engage in the visa process, and they were

there the day it was signed.

So this is a legal issue. I think it has been a year now. They are

providing great value over in Saudi Arabia, have been engaged in

finding people that wouldn’t have been detected otherwise and engaging with the consular officials, so I think in some ways we are

passed that, but there is just a debate over the statutory interpretation.

Mr. TIERNEY. I am a little concerned about some of the things I

see in the report about whether or not they are being that effective

when I see that 9 out of 10 of the officers served over in Saudi Arabia don’t read or speak Arabic, and right on down the line.

But let me, because time is limited, go to the funding issue.

Where do we stand on the funding? Is it still inadequate to complete the things that need to be completed on that? Where is it in

the process? How far apart are the present numbers being proposed

from what the perceived needs of the Department are?

Mr. VERDERY. Well, as you know, we are winding up fiscal year

2004. There was no money in the 2004 budget because the agreement hadn’t been signed and the office hadn’t been set up; there

was essentially nothing to fund. So we have taken money from ICE

and other parts of the Department to build this fledgling program.

There is $10 million that is in the appropriations bill that are

pending here that will provide enough money to do the Washington

responsibilities we talked about and turn the Saudi operation into

full-time, permanent employees and at least one other hub location

overseas to full-time, permanent.

Now, we are also looking, very importantly, at having enough

money to deploy rapid response teams. So if we see a country

where there is a security gap or we have intelligence about a potential security gap, we can get a team of experienced law enforcement

66

people there, maybe 30 days, 60 days, to engage, to improve the situation, to get us through a risk period, and the like. It is a different model than just sending people everywhere, but we think it

is one that should be explored.

So the money is there. I would think in future years, as the program meets success and we have the fully engaged partnership developed, I would imagine they would expand beyond the $10 million, but that is what we need for this year.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. We know what some of the issues are. We

know you have a very difficult time. It is good to see that we have

the Department of Homeland Security and State working together

on this issue. We know what the problems are and we have attempted to set up the systems, now it is a matter of implementing

and managing those systems.

I would like to talk about two different areas, if I can, in the time

allotted, to get into some more specifics, and that is something that

has been alluded to today. The question is about the Visa Security

Officers and, second, the Biometric Visa Program, and that is the

program, as we know, that requires applicants for fingerprinting,

photographs, and to await clearance through the IDENT system.

Now, as it relates to the VSO or the security officers, first thing,

why did we just pick Saudi Arabia? Is it a pilot program? I mean,

the law basically states that we must have these VSO Security Officers in Saudi Arabia.

Mr. VERDERY. Part of the Homeland Security Act essentially said

that we could not issue any visas after the date the MOU was

signed unless we had the DHS Visa Security Officers in Saudi reviewing those applications.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. OK, now, I know.

Mr. ERVIN. May I just interject? Actually, the statute said that

notwithstanding any other provision of law, that after the enactment of the act, which was January 2003, there had to be onsite

DHS personnel to review visa applications in Saudi Arabia, and it

was because 15 of the 19 September 11 terrorists were from Saudi

Arabia.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. OK. Well, let me ask you this. Do we have

a job description for that position, for the VSO? What is the job description? And what I am alluding to—let me go a little bit further.

Do we have issues that would relate to language? What is the funding mechanism? What is the plan to go into other countries?

I mean, what this does is give a stronger security component to

the visa process, but it is not just having a couple people out there

and throwing them out there without training and the ability to

speak the language. What do we need to do to make this a stronger

program to then take this to other countries where we have just

as much vulnerability as Saudi Arabia?

Mr. VERDERY. Well, there is a plan in place on training the officers, on providing the job descriptions, on moving on to other countries, the hub countries, as I mentioned. Some of these we have interim training programs in place and are moving on to more fullVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:00 Jan 10, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97229.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
67

time programs. For instance, we are required to train the VSOs.

We have been doing that in-house.

We are now going to be working with FLETC, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, to provide that professional training to

the VSOs as they are deployed overseas. So in some ways we have

come up with interim measures that have fit the bill during this

interim year. Now we are moving on to full-time employees, about

the language issues and the like.

In terms of the deployment to other locations, we expect that to

be done throughout fiscal year 2005 as the money comes in, to get

people out to high-risk areas. We have identified five. We think we

will probably do at least one in fiscal year 2005, in addition to

these rapid response teams I mentioned that we would like to be

able to do.

So there are plans in place. I would be not fully honest if I said

this has been a difficult program to manage with no funds. So we

have taken it out of——

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Well, my concern is this looks like a good

program, but we are woefully inadequate as far as the personnel

is concerned, the training is concerned. If you can’t speak the language, I wonder if there is expertise in intelligence analysis, the

ability to analyze what we have.

What is the integration, if we have the technology there, the integration between getting information and getting into other arenas or finding out where to get that information? I think it is a program that makes a lot of sense, but I am very concerned about

what I hear today about implementing it, the technology, the training, the job descriptions, all of those areas.

Mr. VERDERY. We obviously agree. We think this is very valuable. The people who have been doing this have found it valuable.

The State Department colleagues have found it to be valuable. We

are finding people in the application process that would not have

been found otherwise. The law enforcement experience and the access that they bring to the broader range of DHS——

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. I am going to interrupt you because I see

my yellow light is on. I want to get to the Biometric Visa Program,

which really I think is a great program. I know that the GAO is

expected to issue a report that there is not enough uniform guidance as far, as the management of this program, for those individuals that are adjudicating the visa applications.

The good news is that GAO is going to say that you are ahead

of schedule on the implementation of the program, which is supposed to start, I think, in October 2004. My question basically is

if the GAO is coming out with that recommendation, they are concerned about the uniform guidance, how do we expect to deal with

that?

Ms. JACOBS. Thank you for the question. The Bio Visa Program

is one that the State Department is very, very proud of. We were

able to get it out to the field very quickly. We started in September

2003. We will definitely meet our October 26 deadline for having

the program up and running at all of our 211 visa processing posts.

The study that the GAO did pointed to some recommendations

about more policy guidance to the field, more instructions on implementing the program. In our response to the GAO report, we did

68

point to a number of instructions, policy guidance that was sent out

to the field beginning in September 2003, when we first deployed

the program, and I would be happy to provide you with sort of a

list of all of those telegrams that have gone out.

Some of the issues raised in that report had to do with procedural questions that were still being worked out because it was a

new program. We are really joined at the hip with DHS in implementing this program. I think it is one of the best examples of the

cooperation between our two agencies.

But there were some technical systems issues that we has to address along the way, and we did keep the field informed. One of

the questions was getting the result of the name check, the IDENT

check back before an interview seemed to be important to the GAO

investigators, and as we explained in our response, no visa can be

issued until the results have been looked at by the adjudicating officer.

So it would be nice to have the information, but sometimes, given

the way that the system is set up and works, that is not always

possible. But the information is always available before the visa is

actually adjudicated.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Thank you. I think it is very important

that we have a lot of oversight on the Visa Security Officers program. It is a good idea. Where it is now, I think it is really doomed

for failure, and yet I think we need this type of program. So if you

could report back, at least to me, if not the committee, on where

we are in this program and what it needs to be successful; otherwise, I believe we are wasting money.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. VERDERY. We would be happy to. And, again, we agree this

is a very key priority of Under Secretary Hutchinson, and we are

going to make the most of the money that is coming our way.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here. I was also

pleased to hear of the cooperation between DHS and the State Department on many of these issues. I would say in our district office

the overwhelming number of constituent cases that we deal with,

we deal with immigration issues, both on the permanent immigration side but very often on the non-immigrant visa issue. It is the

No. 1 issue with respect to constituent concerns.

And in that regard, as I understand it, we have really got a couple of processes: you can be in the Visa Waiver Program in 1 of 27

countries where you go through no visa process or a couple of the

other exceptions, or you can be from a country where we are going

through a much more vigorous visa application process.

And with respect to that second category of countries, my question deals with those individuals who apply for a visa, they go to

the consular officer, they are determined not to be a security risk,

they go through all the background checks and determine that this

person has no history of any kind of wrongdoing or anything, but

they are denied a visa because of a concern that they are going to

overstay their visit.

69

And we have so many people who are trying to come here for

weddings, in many cases funerals, where the individual is denied

on the basis that they claim that they are going to be at risk of

overstaying; not a security risk, risk of overstaying, but really

given no reason in many cases, provided no argument or rationale

for why this person is denied and what that person would have to

show in order to meet the tests of the consular officer.

So I would appreciate it if you could address that issue, because

it comes up constantly in our district office.

Ms. JACOBS. OK, I would be happy to try to address that. The

section of law that you are talking about is Section 214(b) of the

Immigration Act, which basically presumes that all non-immigrant

applicants are intending applicants until they overcome that presumption. And 214(b) remains the primary reason that people are

denied visas, more so certainly than people being suspected of

being terrorists or security risks.

Section 214(b) does loom large for the vast majority of applicants.

It is something that has certainly existed before September 11, and

it is something that all of our consular officers receive training before they are put in a position of having to adjudicate visas, training in how to identify bona fide applicants and those who may be

coming who are in fact intending to remain in the United States.

The officers who are at our embassies adjudicating visas have received a lot of other types of training, they are very familiar with

the host country, the social, political, economic conditions in that

country, and they really are able to tell, for the most part, applicants who really are coming for the intended purpose and those

who have not been able to overcome this presumption of being an

intended immigrant.

There are certain countries where there is a lot of pressure to immigrate to the United States, either to find jobs because there are

family, friends here, other reasons, and in those countries, again,

most of the cases are denied because of this intending immigrant

presumption.

We do give officers training. I know that sometimes applicants

feel that they are not given an explanation. All applicants are supposed to be given in writing the reason that the visa was denied.

We do give all kinds of suggestions about what an applicant can

bring in the way of documents and otherwise to show that they

have strong ties to the home country, to give proof about the purpose of the visit to the United States. So the officer looks at every

case on its individual merits, looking at the case as a whole, and

uses the training and the knowledge about the host country to

make the best decision possible.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK. Well, I would appreciate the opportunity

to work with your office on some of these cases because there are

some that I think we would all agree, fair-minded people would

agree are cases where there was absolutely no risk of someone not

returning to their homeland, a case where someone wanted to see

his dying brother who had brain cancer, in fact, we were finally

able to resolve it and the person went back.

But there are cases where it seems to me understandably consular officers who are the front line since September 11 are denying people far more automatically than they were before, even

70

where there is no issue of security. Obviously if there is any hint

of a security risk, that person needs to be fully vetted and make

sure that we don’t allow that person to enter, but these are people

who there is no finding of security risk and yet it seems that there

has been an increase in denials without providing any rationale for

the decision. So I hope that at least on certain cases we are able

to work together.

Mr. VERDERY. Congressman, could I just add two points related

to this?

One, we have been working quite closely with the business community to try to figure out better mechanisms for business travelers to avoid getting caught up in this kind of 214(b) issue. We have

had very productive discussions on making sure that they provide

the best documentation available, that we can work with the companies to figure out, yes, these are legitimate company employees,

that kind of thing, to try to help on that front.

The second thing goes back to the point I think Congressman

Tierney raised, the importance of the exit part of US-VISIT. Essentially, now, when somebody arrives, we really don’t know when

they are leaving, so having that capability over the next few years

to be built out will really add to the value of understanding when

you give somebody a visa, what does that mean; are they leaving,

are they staying, what countries are problem areas, and the like.

So getting that right is extremely important, but very difficult

when you think of imposing that kind of requirement at airports

or land borders.

So look forward to working with you on both of those.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Right. No, I think that is critical, being able

to document who is overstaying or not. My concern is that often we

are not doing it on an individual basis, we are generalizing with

respect to countries.

So an individual who may have a very good individual case to

come here is somehow tainted because others from that country

may have overstayed. But I think you are absolutely right, it is important to get the data so that we can take a look at these things.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And also I just hope you would consider

US-VISIT information, too, in the visa process so the barriers that

exist now, we are going to get a lot of information out of that, and

as we talked before, not just for the Visa Waiver Program, but in

some of the other areas, we want to optimize the use of this information. We will come back and revisit this when we get it.

I think that will conclude this panel. The committee will take

about a 1-minute recess as we move our next panel.

Oh, Mr. Souder has one last question.

Mr. SOUDER. I am sorry. I wanted to ask Ms. Jacobs are all State

Department employees required to know the language when they

go into a country?

Ms. JACOBS. For the most part, yes. Our positions are languagedesignated or not, but in most instances consular officers do speak

the language of the host country.

Mr. SOUDER. And do you have training programs for those people? Because pretty much everybody I have met has to understand

the language when they are in that country as part of their training program before they go over.

71

Ms. JACOBS. Yes, sir, we do, we have a very intensive language

program provided by our Foreign Service Institute.

Mr. SOUDER. What is your estimate of the cost of that program

per person, do you have it in your budget when you figure you have

to train somebody?

Ms. JACOBS. I can get back to you with that number.

Mr. SOUDER. OK, thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you again. Our thanks to this

panel. We will take a 1-minute recess, then we will have Jacquelyn

Williams-Bridgers, Managing Director of the International Affairs

and Trade Team for the Government Accountability Office, next.

[Recess.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We will now move to our second panel,

and I want to thank Jacquelyn L. Williams-Bridgers, the Managing

Director of the International Affairs and Trade Team for the Government Accountability Office for being here.

It is the policy of this committee that all witnesses be sworn. If

you would rise with me and raise your right hands. Who do you

have with you we need to identify?

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. With me is Randolph Hite, who is the

Director of International Technology Architecture and Systems

Issues.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Hite, welcome. We will swear you in

as well in case we have any questions.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

I know you know the rules. We are trying to beat a vote, so if

we can get through your testimony and get through questions and

hopefully, when they call the vote, we can go on for 10 minutes and

then dismiss you and not have to hold you until afterwards, and

that will save you some time. Thanks for being with us.

STATEMENTS OF JACQUELYN L. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS, MANAGING DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRADE

TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY RANDOLPH HITE, DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS ISSUES

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman

and members of the committee, for having us here today to discuss

the results of our report issued to you on the results of GAO’s review of the Biometric Visa Program, as well as other aspects of visa

and border security programs that highlight the need for joint, coordinated efforts by the Department of State and the Department

of Homeland Security.

Since September 11, the U.S. Government has made a concerted

effort to better protect our borders by enhancing visa issuance policies and procedures, as well as improving the screening of millions

of foreign visitors who enter, stay, and exit the United States each

year. State’s Biometric Visa Program complements the DHS-run

US-VISIT program by extending border security improvements beyond U.S. ports of entry.

The Biometrics Program requires pre-screening of visa applicants

at U.S. consulates overseas to ensure that they are qualified to obtain visas. The US-VISIT program, among other things, verifies

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that the same person who applied for a visa is the one who is actually entering the United States using that visa.

My statement today will focus on our observations and recommendations that call for joint collaboration of effort between

State and DHS to improve border security programs specifically

with regard to the Biometric Visa Program and the US-VISIT program.

In summary, State and DHS have made many improvements to

visa issuance policies and border security. Nevertheless, in our reviews we have found weaknesses that both agencies need to address. For example, we found that State is implementing the Biometric Visa Program on schedule and will likely meet the mandated October 2004 deadline for issuing visas with biometric identifiers.

As of last week, State had installed program hardware and software at 201 of 207 overseas posts that issue visas, and State plans

to complete installation at the remaining six posts by the end of

this month. The biometric technology installation has progressed

smoothly; however, DHS and State have not provided comprehensive guidance to consular posts on when and how the information

on visa applicants obtained from IDENT should be considered by

adjudicating officers.

In the absence of such guidance, officers may be unclear on how

to optimize the use of IDENT information provided under the Biometrics Program. Therefore, we recommend in our report that DHS

and State develop and provide such guidance to consular posts on

how information on visa applicants available through IDENT

should be used to help adjudicate visa applications.

Further, DHS has employed an initial US-VISIT operating capability, including the use of biometric, for entry at 115 airports and

14 seaports. DHS plans to expand the initial operating capability

at the fiftiest busiest land ports of entry by December 2004 and to

all remaining land ports of entry by December 2005. It has deployed an exit capability on a pilot basis at two airports and one

seaport to enable electronic matching of biometric data collected at

entry to those collected at exit.

However, earlier this year we reported that DHS’s homeland security enterprise architecture had not yet been adequately defined.

By this I mean DHS had not fully constructed an operational context or a blueprint to provide, for example, all US-VISIT stakeholder agencies a common frame of reference for how to implement

US-VISIT in terms of such things as the desired program outcomes, the business processes, information flows, and areas of responsibility.

DHS released an initial version of its enterprise architecture in

September 2003; however, we found that this architecture was

missing important content. This content is needed to help verify,

clarify, and optimize the relationships between US-VISIT and other

homeland security programs and operations such as State’s Biometric Visa Program. DHS plans to release a new version of its enterprise architecture in several weeks.

Also in 2003 we identified systemic weaknesses in another program key to homeland security: the visa revocation process. Many

of the weaknesses we identified were the result of a failure of U.S.

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agencies to share and effectively utilize information that was

shared. Last summer we reported that information on individuals

with visas revoked on terrorism grounds was not fully shared between State and appropriate immigration and law enforcement

agencies.

A followup review just this summer showed that although State

and DHS had made some improvements in the revocation process

in response to our recommendations, some weaknesses remained.

For example, in some cases, State took a week or longer to notify

DHS that it had revoked visas based on potential terrorism concerns. As a result, we made additional recommendations to both

agencies which they have agreed to implement.

Timely information sharing among State, DHS, and other agencies also affects the time it takes to adjudicate a visa for science

students and scholars, as has been discussed during the previous

panel. In some cases consular officers determine that some of these

applicants must undergo the Visa’s Mantis check to protect against

sensitive technology transfers.

In February of this year we found that it was difficult to resolve

some Visa’s Mantis cases expeditiously, given the way that the information was disseminated among State, DHS and other agencies.

State and DHS are currently working to implement recommendations that we have made.

In conclusion, overall our work has demonstrated that coordinated, joint actions taken by State and DHS are critical to homeland and border security. State and DHS have worked together to

roll out the biometric technology to consular posts worldwide and

on schedule. Moreover, their cooperation on US-VISIT has been,

and will continue to be critical to ensure that information available

to consulates is there and ready for them to adjudicate visa applications in a timely manner.

We recognize that it may not be feasible for each post around the

world to implement biometric visas in the exact same way, given

the variances in consulates’ workloads, their physical facilities, the

level of personnel, and security of concerns with the applicant pool.

However, guidance to posts on how to optimize use of biometric information would enable posts to develop best operating procedures

to identify their resource gaps and to implement mitigating actions

to address their unique circumstances.

Therefore, we made a number of recommendations to State and

Homeland Security to develop guidance that should address the

planned uses of information generated by the Biometric Visa Program, including guidance to consular officers on when and how

such information should be considered. Further, we recommend

that the Secretary of State direct consular posts to develop implementing guidance. State has acknowledged there might be some

lag in the guidance they have already provided by way of the 13

telegrams; however, we believe that additional action is needed.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. As I mentioned, I am joined by my colleague, Randolph Hite, and would be

glad to entertain any questions that you or members might have.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Williams-Bridgers follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much. Let me start. In

your testimony you mentioned that the DHS enterprise architecture is missing important content relating to US-VISIT. Can you

elaborate on that concern?

Mr. HITE. If I could, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Hite.

Mr. HITE. It is missing content with respect to US-VISIT and all

homeland security programs, because the enterprise architecture is

designed to define how homeland security is supposed to function,

both in operational and technical terms, not just within the Department of Homeland Security, but across all Federal agencies that

are involved in homeland security, and it extends to State and local

governments as well.

So what we did was use accepted criteria that are out in the public domain concerning what the content of an enterprise architecture should include. We had 34 criteria governing the target architecture, the target environment that you want to move toward, and

then we also had 5 criteria governing what should be in the transition plan, which moves you from your current environment to your

target.

And basically what we found was that it partially satisfied about

60 percent of those criteria, those key elements, and had not satisfied 40 percent. So it is clearly a work in process that right now

didn’t have the level of detail and depth and scope of coverage that

would allow programs to be implemented in a way so that they

interoperate and optimize cross-organizational performance.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Could you comment on the necessity for

the State Department to identify IDENT information retrieval time

requirements for optimal visa interviews so that DHS can appropriately set the systems requirements necessary for US-VISIT?

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Yes. What we found was, unlike what

was mentioned in the prior panel, adjudicating officers, those officers at posts who actually conducted the interviews of visa applicants, do not always have all of the information that is returned

from an IDENT search.

For example, in one of the posts that we visited, there is one consular officer who will review an IDENT response once fingerprints

have been taken and another consular officer who conducts the

interview. So, for example, information that may be returned in an

IDENT response that is not clearly derogatory, meaning that it is

not a hit on a watch list, but may be relevant or even contradictory

to information obtained by an interviewing officer, is not always

made available to that interviewing officer. Therefore, we believe

that sometimes decisions can be made by an adjudicating officer

without the benefit of all the information that may be contained in

the IDENT response.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Also there have been some concerns about

facility limitations, the use of Americans outside the hard line to

collect finger scans and the use of Foreign Service Nationals to collect biometric data. How could these challenges impede on the optimal workflow for obtaining IDENT information prior to a visa

interview?

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. In those posts where there is enough

physical space in the consulate to allow for the collection of fingerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:00 Jan 10, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00091 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97229.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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print data, allow for the applicants to wait in an environment so

that the IDENT information can be processed and then, given a 15

or 30 minute turnaround in the IDENT response, to be given to the

adjudicating officer, it would allow the adjudicating officer to have

all the information available to them.

In those consulates where there is not the physical space to allow

the number of applicants to wait while the IDENT responses are

returned to the consulate, it does not allow for that timely and expeditious consideration of the information. Therefore, an interviewing officer may complete the interview before the IDENT response

is made available to them, therefore prolonging the whole of the

visa consideration process.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Tierney, any questions?

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I read your report, and it is very thorough and I appreciate it. Let me ask you a general question. Do

you find that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State are generally receptive to your recommendations

and attempt to work with them, or are they resistant and disputing

those recommendations with you?

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. I would characterize the Department of

Homeland Security and State as being receptive to our recommendations. They have generally concurred with the recommendations that we have made on the visa policy and process;

however, there are some outstanding steps that we think would improve the ability of the consular officers to make best use of the

information generated from the Biometrics Visa Program.

Mr. TIERNEY. Do you have indications that the Department of

Homeland Security and Department of State are going to act on

those outstanding issues or are they still unresolved?

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. There are some unresolved issues as of

the report that was just issued today, though, but we are quite

hopeful that over time, and we will followup with them——

Mr. TIERNEY. I am sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I am

sorry.

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. I am sorry. And we will followup with

them in ongoing work that we have looking at outstanding visa

vulnerabilities.

Mr. TIERNEY. Because they have actually seen your report before

you issued it today; you gave them a copy for their response.

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Yes. And their comments are incorporated.

Mr. TIERNEY. Right. So when you say they are unresolved, do

their comments indicate that they dispute them or that they intend

to try to work with you to try to resolve the issues?

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. State and DHS have disagreed with our

recommendation of the need for additional implementing guidance

to be issued to consulates. They believe that the overall policy, as

Ms. Jacobs referred to earlier, contained in the 13 telegrams allow

general operating guidance to the consulates, but then allow additional flexibility for the consulates given the types of physical constraints that they may have, the number of personnel, and the language capabilities that result in them relying on Foreign Service

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nationals to integrate into the whole of the visa adjudication process.

So both the DHS and State have agreed in concept to many of

the recommendations, but they have not agreed to that part of the

outstanding recommendation that we believe is so important to

providing actual direction and guidance to the consulates.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, you went out and made field inspections after

what they perceived to be adequate guidance had already been

issued to the field.

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. That is correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. And found it to be inadequate.

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. That is correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. And gave us the examples in your report, and you

cited in your testimony today, of what can happen in those situations.

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. That is correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I think that probably warrants, we probably

should have done this in the reverse order, because I would like to

have now asked questions of the Department of State and Department of Homeland Security. Perhaps we can followup with some

written questions.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That would be fine.

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. I would be glad to respond.

Mr. TIERNEY. Not necessarily of this witness, but the other witnesses with respect to their disagreements.

Thank you very much for your testimony. I appreciate it.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to make a brief comment. I congratulate you

on your report. Our ultimate security is dependent on knowing who

is coming in and being able to establish and follow them if they are

at risk, and this program is critical to that. Thank you for your

input on that and the report. Anybody who ever goes to an admittance desk knows this tremendous tradeoff of wanting to bring people into America, whether they be students or visitors, encouraging

that trade in that aspect, and at the same time we need to make

sure we are secure.

One of the things we heard on the drug issue down in the Caribbean was a number of the countries there that particularly are part

of the European countries, whether it be Dutch or French, that

they then can get a European visa if they live there a certain number of years, and that Libya had in fact been putting in people who

were establishing residency so they could get a European passport

with which to come in to the United States via Puerto Rico.

And if we don’t have systems to make sure we can track this, it

isn’t just the countries involved, but people who come in from other

countries. In Colombia, watching Venezuelans in a Venezuelan embassy watching that Colombians don’t come through in the drug

trade. We are vulnerable on these categories. We have time, but we

need to systematically work at it, and I thank you for your input

and advice to Congress and the agencies.

Ms. WILLIAMS-BRIDGERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Souder.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Sounds like you are getting away easy,

but we have a vote on, so we are going to dismiss you. Thank you

very much for your testimony and your report that are included in

the record, and we may have some followup. Thank you.

The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:53 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[NOTE.—Additional information is on file with the committee.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman and additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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