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89–397 PDF 2003

SMOOTH SAILING OR AN IMPENDING WRECK?

THE IMPACT OF NEW VISA AND PASSPORT

REQUIREMENTS ON FOREIGN TRAVEL TO THE

UNITED STATES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 10, 2003

Serial No. 108–51

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

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

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

CHRIS BELL, Texas

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

PETER SIRH, Staff Director

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Deputy Staff Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHILIP M. SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 10, 2003 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Jacobs, Janice L., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services, U.S.

State Department; Michael Cronin, Associate Commissioner for Immigration Policy and Programs, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security; and Robert J. Garrity, Jr.,

Acting Assistant Director, Records Management Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation ..................................................................................... 13

Marks, John A., national chair, Travel Industry Association of America;

Randel K. Johnson, vice president of Labor, Immigration and Employee

Benefits, U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Richard J. Pettler, partner,

Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, P.C. .............................................. 67

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

Cronin, Michael, Associate Commissioner for Immigration Policy and Programs, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, Department of

Homeland Security, prepared statement of ................................................ 23

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

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 107

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

Virginia, prepared statement of ................................................................... 4

Garrity, Robert J., Jr., Acting Assistant Director, Records Management

Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, prepared statement of ........... 32

Jacobs, Janice L., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services, U.S.

State Department, prepared statement of .................................................. 16

Johnson, Randel K., vice president of Labor, Immigration and Employee

Benefits, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, prepared statement of .................. 78

Marks, John A., national chair, Travel Industry Association of America,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 69

Pettler, Richard J., partner, Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, P.C.,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 94

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 106

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

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 9

(1)

SMOOTH SAILING OR AN IMPENDING WRECK?

THE IMPACT OF NEW VISA AND PASSPORT

REQUIREMENTS ON FOREIGN TRAVEL TO

THE UNITED STATES

THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2154,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman of the

committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tom Davis of Virginia, Ose, Lewis of

Kentucky, Platts, Deal, Miller of Michigan, Waxman, Maloney,

Kucinich, Clay, Watson, Van Hollen, Sanchez, Ruppersberger, Norton, and Bell.

Staff present: Peter Sirh, staff director; Melissa Wojciak, deputy

staff director; Keith Ausbrook, chief counsel; Ellen Brown, legislative director and senior policy counsel; Robert Borden, counsel/parliamentarian; David Marin, director of communications; Scott

Kopple, deputy director of communications; John Cuaderes, Mason

Alinger, and Victoria Proctor, professional staff members; David

Young, counsel; Teresa Austin, chief clerk; Joshua E. Gillespie,

deputy clerk; Shalley Kim, legislative assistant; Corinne

Zaccagnini, chief information officer; Brien Beattie, staff assistant;

Phil Barnett, minority chief counsel; Michael Yeager, minority deputy chief counsel; Karen Lightfoot, minority communications director/senior policy advisor; Earley Green, minority chief clerk; Jean

Gosa, minority assistant clerk; and Cecelia Morton, minority office

manager.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Good morning. We expect a journal vote

around 10:15, so I’m going to get going with my opening statement.

A quorum being present, the Committee on Government Reform

will come to order. I want to welcome everyone to today’s hearing

on the government’s management of security requirements for foreign visitors seeking entry to this country. The issue of visa delays

should come as no surprise to most members. Next to issues concerning Social Security, visa problems tend to be the most requested issue when it comes to casework within our districts.

The committee continues to be concerned that flawed implementation of current and looming security requirements may needlessly

delay or deny entry of foreign travelers to our country for business

or tourism. We all agree that homeland security is our top priority

and, as a result of September 11, we need to closely scrutinize visiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:30 Oct 23, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89397.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tors to our country. Today the committee will examine the entry

process for visitors to see if there are ways that, without sacrificing

security, we can mitigate delays that impede legitimate business

and tourist travel.

Prior to the September 11 attacks, the State Department’s visa

operations focused primarily on screening applicants to determine

whether they intended to work or reside illegally in the United

States. Consular officers were encouraged to facilitate legitimate

travel and overseas consular sections were given substantial discretion in determining the level of scrutiny applied to visa applications.

Since September 11, the U.S. Government has introduced some

changes to strengthen the security of visa issuance. For example,

the State Department has increased the types of security checks it

conducts on applicants and the number of agencies involved with

those checks. Consular officers are also conducting longer applicant

interviews and more of them. Along with these additional precautions, however, come delays that have seriously affected American businesses and our tourism industry.

Longstanding business relationships are being disrupted because

legitimate travelers attempting to travel to the United States cannot obtain visas. Opportunities for new business relationships and

normal business practices are being blocked and personnel transfers within some U.S. corporations are being delayed. In addition,

U.S.-based foreign employees visiting family or traveling who need

to renew visas or change them to reflect new status are being significantly delayed in their efforts to return to work.

If current delays weren’t enough, we understand that additional

delays are expected. On August 1, the State Department will implement new regulations that will further reduce the instances in

which consular interviews can be waived for visa applications. This

is expected to change interview rates from 10 percent of visa applicants in some locations to close to 90 percent of applicants. A cable

sent in May of this year from Secretary Powell to all diplomatic

and consular posts states that the Bureau of Consular Affairs expects and accepts that many posts will face processing backlogs for

the indefinite future. Posts are required to use existing resources

for the interview increase and are not permitted to use overtime.

In some countries, the wait time for interview appointments can

be several months. For example, one of the consulates in India, a

country that is the source of many high-tech companies and employees, has such a large interview backlog that it is no longer accepting appointments for interviews. This means that travelers

must spend additional time and money to travel to alternate interview locations. In some countries the toll phone call to set up an

interview appointment at the consulate can cost a day’s wages or

more.

We are here today to understand what steps the State Department is taking to minimize the impact this new requirement will

have on business and tourism in the United States.

Committee staff visited U.S. consular operations in Germany and

Latvia to see how increased security requirements are being implemented at both large and small missions. The embassies in both

Latvia and Germany have already ramped up interview operations

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to require interviews for over 80 percent of visa applicants. The

embassy in Berlin uses an appointment system that provides applicants an interview appointment within two business days of the

date of request. The embassy in Latvia has set aside 1 day of the

week for interviews for applicants identified by the local chapter of

the American Chamber of Commerce as priority applicants. This

scheduling accommodation will save time for business travelers

who need to obtain a visa quickly.

Another example of an innovative idea that minimizes delays is

the way the embassy in Latvia permits maritime sailors who register through a central crewing agency to be granted visas safely

without interviews. The embassy believes this method allows for a

secure way to streamline the visa process for what amounts to

nearly a quarter of the total visa applicants in Latvia.

Under the impending State Department interview requirements,

such a procedure may require a waiver. The committee hopes that

the State Department will consider reasonable alternate processes

that will expedite processes without jeopardizing security.

Another expected source of delays begins in October of this year

when the USA PATRIOT Act requires visitors to the United States

to use machine-readable passports to enter the country. Although

government sources report that many countries are in fact producing machine-readable passports, travelers may not actually possess

them. Travelers who attempt to enter the country without a machine-readable passport will be required to either apply for a visa

to enter the United States or to apply for a new passport. I am interested in hearing from our panels today about how this new requirement is being publicized both here and abroad, what policies

are in place for any waivers, and what the airlines are expected to

do when would-be travelers are unable to present machine readable

passports.

I hope that by the end of the hearing today, the committee will

have a good picture of the important security measures the State

Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are taking to protect the homeland

from foreign visitors who would do us harm. But I also hope that

we can learn about ways in which potential damage to American

business and tourism can be avoided or mitigated.

We have assembled an impressive group of witnesses to help us

understand the current and expected problems pertaining to business travel and what actions are being taken to prevent or mitigate

delays. We will hear from the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We will also receive input from the private sector, including

the U.S. Chamber, the Travel Industry Association of America, and

the law firm of Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy.

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

committee, and I look forward to their testimony.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. And I now yield to our ranking member,

Mr. Waxman, for his opening statement.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding

this hearing because today’s hearing is about the balance we need

to draw between having an open society, one that encourages international tourism and commerce, and the need to protect ourselves

against real terrorist threats. Both are important interests. But

when we take steps to advance one of these interests, we need to

recognize that it often comes at the expense of the other. That’s

why we in Congress and the executive branch need to be thoughtful and selective about the measures we are prepared to take or not

take in the name of homeland security.

In the wake of September 11, 2001, Congress passed the PATRIOT Act, the Homeland Security Act, and other measures to try

to elevate the importance of security at home. Some of these reforms were necessary and long overdue. In some of these instances,

however, I think we acted too quickly, giving little thought to the

consequences.

The hearing today is going to focus mainly on two security regulations that may significantly affect the travel and tourism industry, exporters, and other sectors of our economy that rely on foreign

travelers to the United States. One requires that countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program issue machine-readable passports by October 1, 2003. This is a requirement passed by Congress, and in concept it appears to make a great deal of sense. The

issue is the timetable required by the law and its impact on travelers whose governments have not acted quickly enough to issue the

new passports.

The other regulation will require consular officers around the

world to conduct far more interviews of visa applicants, possibly

causing long delays in the issuance of visas. The travel industry

and other groups represented here today argue that this will add

little to our security and will worsen the decade-long decline in the

U.S. share of world travel. They say that it is not clear how the

cursory interviews conducted at visa windows will really improve

our ability to detect terrorists.

Although the numbers are unclear, we know that at least some

of the September 11 terrorists who obtained visas were interviewed

by consular officials. One official who interviewed one of the terrorists asked how she could be expected to tell from the interview that

he was bent on committing an act of terrorism. That’s a good question. Even if these interviews are a good idea, it appears the State

Department is badly prepared for the backlogs and increased workload that will certainly follow.

A cable issued on May 3 to U.S. missions abroad, recognized the

problems, but indicated that the State Department would not provide additional resources. The cable reads, ‘‘Posts must implement

the new interview guidelines using existing resources. Posts should

not, repeat not, use overtime to deal with the additional workload

requirements but should develop appointment systems and public

relations strategies to mitigate as much as possible the impact of

these changes.’’

To me it’s a recipe for disaster. If the United States is going to

make this policy change, then the officials implementing it need

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the resources to do the job. Appointment systems and public relation strategies are not the answer.

I welcome all of our witnesses and I look forward to hearing from

them and receiving their testimony today.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Do any other Members wish to make a

statement? If not we will move to our first panel of witnesses and

I want to thank them for taking time from their busy schedules to

be with us today.

Welcome Ms. Janice Jacobs, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for

Visa Services, U.S. State Department; Mr. Michael Cronin, the Associate Commissioner for Immigration Policy and Programs from

the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, Department of

Homeland Security; and Mr. Robert Garrity, the Acting Assistant

Director of the Records Management Division of the FBI.

It’s the policy of this committee that all witnesses be sworn in

before they testify. So if you would rise with me and raise your

right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. In order to allow time for questions—your

total statement is in the record. We have a light in front of you.

When the yellow light goes on, that means 4 minutes are up and

you have a minute to sum up, and if you could move to summary

and then we can get directly into questions.

Ms. Jacobs we will start with you and thank you for being with

us.

STATEMENTS OF JANICE L. JACOBS, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR VISA SERVICES, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT; MICHAEL CRONIN, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER FOR IMMIGRATION POLICY AND PROGRAMS, BUREAU OF CUSTOMS AND

BORDER PROTECTION, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; AND ROBERT J. GARRITY, JR., ACTING ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, RECORDS MANAGEMENT DIVISION, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

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

you for inviting me to testify before you today on the subject of visa

policy and its effect on the security of the United States, our economic health, and our openness to other societies. Clearly these are

all significant interests of the United States that must be given

their proper weight as the Department of State and Department of

Homeland Security design and implement a visa policy that serves

the broad goals of our country.

Visa adjudication by consular offices abroad underwent a change

in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. While detecting security threats to our country

was always taken with the utmost seriousness by our officers, we

had few tools beyond our incomplete watchlist to screen for terrorists and other security threats in the visa process before September

11.

Suspicion of illegal immigration was and remains the primary

reason for turning down a visa applicant, and our officers are well

trained to do this job. It is hardly surprising that their efforts were

focused on the well-documented problem of illegal immigration

prior to September 11, nor should it surprise anyone now that we

have shifted our priorities toward the security of the visa process

in order to render it a more effective antiterrorism tool.

The Department of State has invested substantial time, money,

and effort in revamping our visa work to serve this end. We have

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doubled our database holdings on individuals who should not be

issued visas, increased our training efforts to better apprise consular offices of counterterrorism issues, set up special programs to

more fully vet visa applicants of particular concern and moved to

increase staffing for visa positions abroad.

While you never achieve perfection in this area, I am confident

that we have a much stronger visa process in place at our overseas

posts than we had just 1 year ago, and the country is safer for it.

There is a cost for all of this effort and it is not simply borne by

the Department in terms of greater personnel and equipment

needs. It also comes at a cost in time and a certain amount of inconvenience to visa applicants who must now navigate a process

that is more rigorous than it has been in the past. Secretary Powell

has succinctly articulated our policy as ‘‘Secure Borders, Open

Doors,’’ and we at the Department are acutely aware of the need

to satisfy both of these objectives. The U.S. economy counts on the

billions of dollars spent each year by international tourists. Our

universities reap the economic benefits of preeminence among destination countries for international students. Our scientific establishment flourishes in a climate of open exchange across borders,

and our entire society is accustomed to living in a free and open

manner that counts upon an ease of movement across international

borders.

We are determined to preserve these crucial benefits to the

United States even as we work to strengthen the visa process. Most

nonimmigrant visa applicants do not require any special check beyond the enhanced consular name check. While processing requirements have increased the burden on our officers in terms of the

data they collect and the checks they must complete, most of this

occurs out of the applicant’s sight and does not add appreciably to

the time required to make a visa decision.

Much of the frustration of last summer and fall when we were

adding requirements without the resources to properly handle

them has been overcome. But applicants and their sponsors often

believe that nothing has changed, even when they have yet to test

the system with a new application. In order to keep visas flowing

smoothly with the new security requirements, we are adding additional officers in the field. We will have a net increase of 39 consular officers for fiscal year 2003 and another 80 in fiscal year

2004. We have tightened the conditions under which we allow posts

to waive a personal interview by a visa applicant and asked our

210 visa-issuing posts to implement this new policy by August 1 of

this year. By centralizing at headquarters level the decisionmaking

authority on this issue, we can consult security experts before making changes to general guidelines. I will point out that many posts

have met the new standard already.

Because most of our posts operate in countries where illegal migration to the United States has been a longstanding problem, consular officers there were already interviewing the vast majority of

applicants. Some posts not facing a significant problem of illegal

migration changed their interview policy without prompting from

us. London, for example, went to an 80 percent interview rate in

January of this year and was able to implement this policy without

great stress to either officers or applicants. Clearly, however, there

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are posts in high-volume places that will have a tougher time coming into compliance with the policy.

We are committed to toughening our security screening, but also

to ensuring that applicants get their visas in a timely manner and

we will work closely with affected posts such as Seoul, Rome, Paris,

Tokyo and Taipei to see that both goals are attained. We are working to effectively and smoothly implement the requirement established by law that any visitors seeking to enter the United States

under the Visa Waiver Program after October 1, 2003 present a

machine-readable passport or otherwise obtain a U.S. visa, which

has long been machine-readable. We are vigorously publicizing the

requirement in the VWP countries and our embassies are fully prepared to issue visas quickly to VWP citizens unable to obtain an

MRP in time for any needed travel.

A number of non-immigrant visa applications, approximately 2

percent of our workload, are submitted by consular officers overseas to the Department of State for Washington-level screening by

Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies. This is known

as the ‘‘security advisory opinion’’ process. The purpose of the new

additional review is to focus on serious issues such as hostile intelligence activity, potential terrorist threats and access to sensitive

technology. The Department of State acts primarily as a clearinghouse in this process. We have added significant resources to the

staff of the Visa Office to ensure that we return to posts overseas

the results of the interagency review promptly upon completion.

The analytical experts of the Department who review such cases do

so within 2 weeks.

We are also spending approximately $1 million to modernize the

transmission of data in the security advisory opinion process to

eliminate as much as possible manual manipulation of case data

and make use of a new interagency network known as OSIS. This

modernization should be complete by January 2004.

The Department of State is working hand-in-hand with our colleagues at Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to ensure we have a visa system that properly recognizes threats to the

United States in the visa process and stops them from reaching our

shores. We are working every day with business and industry to

see that access to our country is not impeded for those whose business we want and whose presence we value.

I am happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank

you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jacobs follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. We will move to Mr. Cronin.

Mr. CRONIN. Good morning, Chairman Davis, Ranking Member

Waxman and members of the committee. I am pleased to have this

opportunity to appear before you today. The focus of my testimony

will be implementation of the machine-readable passport requirement for participation in the Visa Waiver Program. The Visa Waiver Program was established on a pilot basis in 1986. It allows foreign travelers from certain countries to be admitted to the United

States as visitors under specific conditions and for a limited time

without first obtaining a nonimmigrant visa.

As Ranking Member Waxman noted in his opening remarks, Section 217 of the Immigration and Nationality Act now requires that,

barring a waiver, an alien at the time of application for admission

must be in possession of a valid, unexpired, machine-readable passport that satisfies the internationally accepted standard for machine readability.

In October 2001, Section 417 of the USA PATRIOT Act advanced

the deadline for implementation of this requirement from October

1, 2007 to October 1, 2003. Although this deadline represents the

first universal application of the machine-readable passport requirement, it has been a longstanding Visa Waiver Program requirement that countries in the program issue or certify their intent to issue a machine-readable passport.

I would like to clearly note at this point that this October 1, 2003

deadline for machine-readable passports is distinct from the October 26, 2004 deadline for biometrics in passports. Under Section

303 of the Border Security Act, by October 26, 2004, visa waiver

countries are required to certify that they have in place a program

to issue passports that contain biometrics, and this will be a condition of continued participation in the Visa Waiver Program. Also,

on or after October 26, 2004, any alien seeking admission under

the program must present a passport that contains biometrics, unless the passport was issued prior to that date.

The use of machine-readable passports is critical to efficient border management and to the capture of accurate biographical and

passport data relating to foreign travelers. This capability forms

the backbone of the advanced passenger information system under

which data on arriving air and sea travelers is communicated to

the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection and to our ports-ofentry well in advance of the conveyances on which they are traveling. It greatly reduces the possibility of human error or misfeasance in capturing and communicating data and adds to the integrity of the documents presented. This data is used to identify persons seeking to enter our country who may present a threat to our

national security or welfare.

As noted earlier, the October 1, 2003 deadline was enacted in October 2001, following a lengthy period during which the Visa Waiver Program countries were required to certify, as a condition of participation in the program, that they were issuing or preparing to

issue machine-readable passports. The majority of visa waiver travelers are presently in possession of machine-readable passports and

will not have difficulty meeting this new requirement. Those who

are not in possession of machine-readable passports will, on and

after October 1, 2003, have to acquire such a passport from their

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country of nationality in order to enter the United States under the

Visa Waiver Program. Alternatively, persons not in possession of a

machine-readable passport will have to secure a nonimmigrant visa

from the U.S. Embassy or consulate in order to enter the United

States.

Clearly the Department of Homeland Security is mandated to

implement this important requirement at our ports-of-entry on October 1, 2003, and it is our intention to do so. The Department will

endeavor to work with interested parties, especially businesses associated with international travel and with foreign governments, to

meet our statutory requirements without adversely impacting the

vital flow of international visitors from Visa Waiver Program countries. We note that under the statutory scheme, this mandate extends to transportation lines which are signatory to agreements to

transport VWP, Visa Waiver Program travelers, and which are further required under Section 273 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to ensure that their passengers are in possession of valid

passports and visas if visas are required.

This Department will also work closely with the Department of

State and with transportation lines to ensure that this requirement

is widely known and understood by travelers who will be subject

to it. Though this is not a new requirement, having been enacted

nearly 2 years ago, it is very different from historic documentary

requirements for which transportation lines have been responsible.

Up to now, transportation lines’ staff have been required to ensure

that travelers were in possession of facially valid, unexpired passports and visas, if visas were required. In the case of visa waiver

travelers, their passports and machine readability or lack thereof

will now regulate whether or not a visa is required. Before and

after implementation of the requirement, we will work closely with

transportation lines to ensure they have a clear understanding of

the document-checking requirements for which they are liable. We

will work with transportation lines to provide feedback on what we

are seeing at ports-of-entry concerning the presentation of machine-readable passports by visa waiver travelers.

I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to

present this testimony. The Department of Homeland Security welcomes implementation of this provision of the USA PATRIOT Act

as a necessary step in ensuring that adequate and accurate data

is available to our inspectors at ports-of-entry and to all law enforcement and national security agencies. We acknowledge the

challenge of implementation of this requirement because it does

represent a departure from document-checking standards. Nonetheless, in our view, it represents critical progress toward strengthening our intelligence, border protection, and transportation security

capabilities and will serve as a model for international enhancements in these areas. The Department will achieve this security

enhancement while endeavoring to facilitate the valuable economic

and social benefits brought to our country by international travelers.

And I would be pleased to respond to any questions from the

committee.

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cronin follows:]

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Mrs. MILLER. We certainly appreciate the testimony thus far. As

you can see, we have been called to the House floor for a vote and

I am going to recess at this time and the chairman will be back

shortly. Thank you very much.

[Recess.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Cronin, I don’t want to ignore your

testimony, but I want to keep things moving.

Mr. Garrity, I think you’re on.

Mr. GARRITY. On behalf of Director Mueller, I want to thank you

for inviting the FBI to testify this morning. I have submitted a detailed statement for the record but will summarize the highlights

of my testimony this morning.

My name is Robert Garrity and I have been a Special Agent of

the FBI for 27 years. Here with me today is David Hardy, chief of

the Record/Information Dissemination Section which handles that

part of the FBI’s national name check program.

First, I want to emphasize to you that the FBI is sensitive to the

impact that delays in visa processing may have on business, education, tourism, this country’s foreign relations and worldwide perception of the United States. At the same time, the FBI mission for

homeland security requires that our name check process be primarily focused on accurate and thorough results. This means that

there are instances when the FBI’s review of a visa request must

require as much time as needed to obtain an unequivocally correct

result. Thus we are striving to meet the challenges of ensuring the

security without unduly disrupting legitimate commerce and foreign relations to this Nation.

With these considerations in mind, the FBI is working diligently

with the Department of State toward the common goals of improving the expediency and efficiency of the visa clearance process.

I would like to give the committee some background. And if you

will refer to the chart in my statement or also on the side here,

prior to September 11, the FBI processed approximately 2.5 million

name checks per year. For this fiscal year we estimate the number

to reach 9.8 million requests. This represents an increase in excess

of 300 percent. We will process approximately 200,000 visa name

check requests, including approximately 75,000 Visas Condor and

25,000 Visas Mantis requests.

I invite your attention to the portions in my written testimony

to provide a detailed description of the process that is used to check

the FBI records for information on an individual. But in short, the

process must resolve whether information on a specific individual

requesting a visa is contained in FBI records and, if so, whether

that information is such as to raise national security concerns

about this individual entering the United States. Our goal is to

have all visa name check requests resolved within 120 days.

I will show you two other charts that reflect the status of visa

name check processing for the past year. The second chart reflects

the status of Visas Condor name checks. For example, we received

7,384 requests during the month of June 2003. We resolved all but

649 of these requests, a 92 percent resolution rate. For the month

of May, we received 5,059 Visas Condor requests and resolved all

about 105, a 98 percent resolution rate.

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Our next chart on Visas Mantis shows that we received 2,589 requests in the month of June and resolved 2,226 or 86 percent of

them. Visas Mantis are particularly difficult to resolve due to a

predominance of requests from China and the commonality of

Asian names. On average, 80 to 85 percent of visa requests are resolved in 72 hours. As shown on the graphs, 86 to 92 percent are

completed in 30 days.

For both Condor and Mantis visas, 98 to 99 percent of the requests are resolved within 120 days. These numbers provide you

with accurate information to assess whether, both in time and

numbers, the FBI visa name check process unduly disrupts the

commerce of this Nation.

Nonetheless, we are striving to improve the process. Working

closely with State, we are improving our interagency communication processes. This will result in significant improvement in the

overall visa process. Likewise, internally we have made our name

check processes much more efficient. We continue to aggressively

seek additional efficiencies. However, the FBI recognizes that it

needs a more modern name check application to meet the new demands of name checks. That process has already begun.

The FBI also recognizes that the retrieval of record information

from FBI files constitutes our single greatest impediment to a more

rapid process. FBI files are currently stored at one of approximately 265 locations worldwide. This provides some unique challenges to our efforts to be optimally effective and efficient. While

the FBI’s decentralized paper records management process does

ease field investigations and local prosecutions, a process that may

have sufficed before September 11, those terrorist attacks have

forced the FBI to shift from parochial investigations to nationwide

intelligence gathering and sharing. As the FBI is called upon to

share and jointly investigate complex cases, it must share information internally with other cooperating organizations. Currently, analysts conducting research on terrorism or intelligence topics, who

develop leads based on information indexed in files located outside

Washington, must request those files to be retrieved and shipped

to FBI headquarters.

The decentralized records management system hinders timely

nationwide investigations and information sharing since much time

and effort is expended simply locating and shipping the files across

country. These delays have resulted from national name check program personnel identifying a file’s location and then requesting the

file from a field office. Time delays mount as field office staff search

file rooms and ship the needed file back to FBI headquarters.

One possible solution to these problems that the FBI is currently

exploring would be the creation of a central records repository

where all of our closed paper files could be located and our active

files stored electronically. Our frequently-requested closed files

would be scanned and uploaded into our recordkeeping system so

that agents and analysts worldwide would have instant and electronic access to the information they need to do their jobs. We believe that the current development of new FBI records systems and

the establishment of a central records repository will have great

promise in eliminating this problem.

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In closing, I want to emphasize the visa name check processing

has the direct attention of Director Mueller. The FBI has in place

the process that provides certainty for businesses for their planning

purposes. We are striving to reduce the time required for a visa

name check, yet maintaining our primary focus of identifying potential threats to this Nation.

And I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Garrity follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me start the questioning.

Ms. Jacobs, let me ask you: Our country has a lot of interactions

with students, athletes, tourists and business people from our ally,

Israel. Where does Israel stand in regard to the Visa Waiver Program? Are there ways the Israelis could receive expedited entry

into the country? I mean, they have a pretty good security screening system just to be there. And I talked to the Ambassador. There

is a lot of concern over there about how that is working. Can you

help me with this?

Ms. JACOBS. The Visa Waiver Program has certain statutory requirements that have to be in place before a country can join. One

of those is a low refusal rate for the visa applicants in the country.

At this particular time, the refusal rate for Israeli nationals is

higher than the statutory level that’s required. And so on that

basis, they wouldn’t be able to qualify at this time. Also——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Can you explain to me what you mean by

the refusal rate?

Ms. JACOBS. The refusal rate is the rate of people that are turned

down for visas that are not found eligible for visas because of one

of the various provisions.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. What’s the major reason they’re turned

down?

Ms. JACOBS. I think in the majority of cases it is because they

have not been able to overcome the statutory presumption that

they are intending immigrants, that they are coming here perhaps

to work, to stay.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Basically be illegal once they come in.

Come here and disappear.

Ms. JACOBS. That’s one of the problems. DHS is the one who decides who participates in the program. All of the countries are also

looked at. There are several different factors that are considered:

the integrity of the documents, border protection, whether there

are any particular security threats presented by the nationals of

the country. So it’s really an interagency process where we all look

at the different issues and criteria to make a decision.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I understand from the Swiss American

Chamber that Switzerland has a 4-month backlog on getting folks

machine-readable passports. Is there going to be a State Department waiver for folks from that country who don’t have machinereadable passports? I understand there may be similar problems

for French citizens who get passports, which I don’t care as much

about. Will there be waivers for those people?

Ms. JACOBS. As Mr. Cronin mentioned in his testimony, in order

to join the program all of the countries had to certify that they

were either already issuing machine-readable passports or that

they had a program in place to do so. All of the countries that are

currently in the program have been in for over a decade. I think

the feeling is they have had sufficient time to get machine-readable

passports into the hands of their nationals.

Admittedly, some of these countries waited a long time, even

though they certified they had a program in place. Switzerland did

not start issuing until 2000. France, I think it was 1999. So some

of the countries waited a long time before starting. Now they are

going to be pressed to get the machine-readable passports into the

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hands of travelers. Certainly we will be prepared to issue visas to

people who are not able to get machine-readable passports in time

for their travel, and that is something that all of our posts in the

visa waiver countries are aware of and trying to take into account

as they set up their appointment systems.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We have gotten concerns from business

groups in India and Korea. Are there going to be facility upgrades

and staffing increases to accommodate increased interview requirements there?

Ms. JACOBS. All of the posts, in addition to the general categories

of exemptions that we sent out to all of the posts whereby they can

still waive interviews—the young, the old, officials, diplomats, people who already had visas—we have already said you don’t need to

interview those people. Posts have come in with additional requests

for other categories that they can exempt from the interview. Seoul

has come in with such a request and we are taking a very hard

look at that. I think it’s safe to say we will grant them some additional exemptions. We are aware of the business interests there. I

think they received a lot of referrals through AMCHIN and I think

we are going to be looking at some of those as people we can waive

the interview requirement for.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Our committee staff recently visited the

embassy in Latvia in preparation for this hearing and the embassy

staff mentioned that they had planned to ask for a class waiver for

recruitment visas for sailors who had been prescreened through

Latvian crewmen agencies and have high degrees of security. Because crewman visas make up about a quarter of the total number

of visas issued at the embassy in Latvia, such a waiver would allow

the staff to devote more time to applicants who need more scrutiny.

If these crewing agencies provide adequate security safeguards,

would this be the type of program for which the Department might

grant a class waiver interview?

Ms. JACOBS. We would certainly take a look at that. I am not

sure that Latvia has come in with that request yet, but when they

do, we will certainly take a look at it. Crewmen a lot of times apply

outside of their own country just because of the circumstances, the

nature of their work. And so we would have to think about whether

we could waive that requirement for any particular nationality, but

it’s certainly something that we will look at.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Cronin, can you give me an update on

the Memorandum of Understanding between DHS and the State

Department that outlines the responsibilities of the two departments with regard to entry policy and procedures?

Mr. CRONIN. The two departments are very, very close to being

finished with the MOU. It appears to be a matter of weeks. Under

Secretary Hutchinson and Assistant Secretary Hardy have been

meeting regularly and discussing the provisions of the MOU. Basically, it’s designed to outline the roles and responsibilities of the

two departments in terms of the Department of Homeland Security’s role in setting visa policy versus the Department of State’s

role in managing and controlling consular operations overseas. I

am not on the negotiating team, but my understanding is that we

are down to the point of fine-tuning language.

53

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Who at DHS is going to be responsible for

entry policies?

Mr. CRONIN. Essentially it would be the Director of Border and

Transportation Security under Secretary Hutchinson who has control over the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Will DHS provide staff at embassies and

consulates?

Mr. CRONIN. There is discussion within the MOU meetings about

assignment of DHS staff overseas as the statute requires. Staff will

be assigned to Saudi Arabia and there’s discussion about assignment of staff to other locations.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I understand that Customs and Border

Patrol have implemented programs such as SENTRY and NEXUS,

similar to programs in the commercial environment, to speed the

low-risk travelers while enhancing security. Could these programs

be expanded to other countries?

Mr. CRONIN. Well, in terms of SENTRY and NEXUS, those are

land border programs, so obviously we are limited to contiguous

territory. There is a possibility of doing a program similar to that

in the airport environment. We operated a program like that in the

past called INPASS. We are working with Canada which is looking

at developing a program similar to that. And there is also a Dutch

program currently in existence that we are observing very closely.

Given the nature and speed of the implementation schedule we

have at the ports-of-entry coming up in the coming year, I don’t

think we are going to be looking at development of the U.S. program similar to that in the near term, but it is something that is

very much—that would be beneficial to the process of moving people through the ports-of-entry and in which we are very interested.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Garrity, I have a couple of questions

for you. When will the FBI have the necessary technology in place

to be able to receive State Department referrals electronically instead of by tape?

Mr. GARRITY. We have the technology in place right now to receive names electronically.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Is it being implemented today?

Mr. GARRITY. We are working with State to make sure the two

systems are compatible. Our system receives most of our names

electronically.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Does the FBI have long-term plans in the

area of electronically capturing FBI records so consular and border

officials can quickly download the security check information without having to refer records to the FBI for review?

Mr. GARRITY. We have two systems that we are looking at. With

our fingerprints, and particularly with the Enhanced Border Security Act, which will require some biometrics that will be run

through our criminal justice information systems. And the biometrics we plan to use, that will be one way of getting almost an

instantaneous check against the FBI’s database of our fingerprint

records. The name check that we do here for State, UN visas, right

now is checks of FBI records; whether or not the FBI has an investigation or information on an individual. We are looking at putting

that in a database to be more proactive so that we have informaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:30 Oct 23, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89397.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tion in the database. Our system is not set up to capture those

names until we actually go through the files. So, as we get a name

and as we are responding to State, we are going to try to start putting those in a database so we don’t have to do that name again.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Are there ways to avoid duplicates of

name checks? And by that, when the Commerce Department issues

a deemed export license for a particular person in a particular technology, security checks are required; couldn’t that security check

also be used as a security check necessary for visa purposes?

Mr. GARRITY. To my knowledge, Commerce does not check the

name against us. They make the decision on the technology but do

not run that name through our name check process.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And Ms. Jacobs, you mentioned you vigorously publicize the new visa interview and machine-readable passport requirements. How is that word getting out, outside of publishing it? Are you doing anything else to inform the public on

these requirements? We keep getting feedback from the traveling

public that they are not aware of this.

Ms. JACOBS. We actually are engaging in active outreach in getting the word out about the October 2003 requirement for MRPs.

When the Visa Waiver Program was made permanent, we notified

posts that everyone would have to enter with a machine-readable

passport by a date certain. When the Patriot Act was passed moving that date to 2003, we went out with a telegram to all of our

posts advising them of this new requirement so they could tell host

governments. This year, earlier in the year, we sent out another

telegram to all of our posts asking them to reach out to the host

government to remind them about the requirement. And by the end

of this month we will have held press conferences and we will have

made—this information is posted on our Web site and the Web

sites of our embassies and consulates abroad. We are going to publish something in IATA’s newsletter and we are taking a number

of other steps. We are going to meet also with the embassies to let

them know or remind them about the requirement.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Jacobs, I and the other members who serve on this committee have the benefit of having at least two perspectives on this

question of visas. On the one hand we look at it from the vantage

point of broad national policy, and also we look at it from the perspective of real individuals who are trying to play by the rules and

obtain visas. And a big part of our job is to help our constituents

deal with these visa problems so we’re able to see which parts of

the system work and which parts are clearly broken.

I am going to give you a summary of five cases that my office

has been working on that all seem to have fallen through the

cracks of your Department, and I am asking for your assistance in

resolving them. Nothing else has worked, so I hope you will be able

to make sure that these matters receive immediate attention. They

are a few examples of what seems to be broken.

In one case, an immigrant visa petitioned for Ms. Asra Sharifi

has been pending since June 2002. She was interviewed at the Ankara embassy in June 2002. A year has now elapsed and my office

continues to be told that the case is pending, pending a security

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clearance. Just last week we were told that the case is pending an

FBI check. But when we checked with the FBI, we were told they

have no record of ever receiving a security clearance request from

the State Department. In other words, she has fallen into a big

black hole.

And your office confirmed again as recently as yesterday that the

official policy is applications should be completed 30 days following

an embassy request. So in this case, that means the process should

have been finalized last July or August.

I am obviously interested in the specific case, but I am also interested in the broader perspective of the problem it reveals. I understand, for instance, that the FBI and State Department have intentionally not linked their computers and the State Department must

hand-deliver requests for security checks. This sometimes results

in inexcusable delays. It seems obvious that you can do more to

process embassy requests in a timely and efficient way. Can you

give us specific improvements you intend to make?

Ms. JACOBS. We are working toward, I think both of our agencies, working toward eventually doing all of this electronically. I

agree completely that would speed up the process. We are undergoing changes right now within the Visa Office. We are spending

about $1 million in order to take information from our consolidated

consular database and put that into an electronic format that we

can send out to the FBI to help speed up this process. We hope to

have that in place by the beginning of next year and that would

essentially eliminate the need for these telegrams that come in,

which is not a terribly efficient way of doing things. So that is

something we are trying to do and we hope eventually to be able

to talk to each other completely electronically, because I think that

is absolutely essential as we do more of these checks.

Mr. WAXMAN. Do you prioritize security checks? Are medical

emergencies given special consideration, and are there circumstances in which the security checks can be expedited?

Ms. JACOBS. There are circumstances. In fact we do expedite all

the time for emergency cases for people who really need to be here

for a certain event. The embassies themselves, I have asked them

to try to give priority in the summer months, for example, to students and exchange scholars who need to be here by the beginning

of the school year. So yes, we have taken steps to try to address

those situations.

Mr. WAXMAN. The chairman has asked about the situation in

Israel. Here is an ally working with us to combat terrorism, and

people have gone back and forth between the United States and

Israel on a regular basis; I have one constituent who contacted our

office regarding the difficulties his mother was experiencing with

her tourist visa at the Tel Aviv Embassy. This woman happened

to have been born in Iraq. She fled to Israel to escape religious persecution in the early 1950’s. Her visa has been undergoing administrative processing for 3 months and she missed the birth of her

first grandchild. The Bureau of Consular Affairs doesn’t have any

indication as to when this visa will be complete and the status of

the security check process. And this particular woman has been

traveling to the United States over the past 20 years to visit her

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U.S. citizen children and she’s never experienced this problem in

the past.

I have a large population from Russia living in my district. One

is an academic from the department of physics and astronomy at

UCLA who contacted us regarding three of his Russian associates.

They applied for visas at the embassy in Moscow in early February

2003, and although two of the visas were issued, one is still stuck

in this administrative processing. And he is part of an important

research project at UCLA. They cannot begin the project without

this individual. To me it’s reminiscent of the time when I used to

go to the Soviet Union and they had the bureaucracy there to prevent people from leaving. Now we have the bureaucracy run by our

government preventing them leaving to come here, even though it

seems on the surface that they should be able to come here.

How can congressional offices determine what has happened with

a security check? None of us wants security risks to be pushed

through the system, but we also don’t want legitimate applications

to be lost. Unfortunately we aren’t told by the Visa Office if a delay

is due to legitimate security questions, if a case is still being processed, or if it is lost in the bureaucracy. Why can’t we get this information?

Ms. JACOBS. I think probably part of the problem is the entire

clearance process is an interagency process. The State Department

serves more as a clearinghouse. Once these telegrams come in from

the posts, they go to the other agencies involved in the name check

process. And you know, we have to wait and hear back and get a

positive response from everyone involved before we can go ahead

and authorize issuance of a visa.

And so I think perhaps in the case of the mother in Israel that

you talked about, born in Iraq, I think in that particular case, that

probably is a case falling under Section 306 of the Enhanced Border Security act, which talks about people from countries on the

state-sponsored list. There is a new requirement for them that

takes longer and that perhaps explains why her visa is taking

longer to get this time.

Mr. WAXMAN. On that particular case, if she were a citizen of

France or Great Britain, having been born in Iraq, would she need

a visa at all?

Ms. JACOBS. She would come in under probably the Visa Waiver

Program if she had a French or UK passport.

Mr. WAXMAN. It raises the question in my mind whether it’s reasonable for us to have this discrimination against Israel, which has

been as close an ally to the United States as countries in western

Europe. And to deny a woman the opportunity to come here to see

her grandchildren being born simply because she was born not just

in Iraq, but because she happens to live in Israel.

Ms. JACOBS. Right. We are taking a look at Section 306 and how

it’s implemented. At this time it’s all undergoing interagency review, and that’s one issue we are all looking at, whether it should

be applied to people who are from a country but actually have

moved and now live in another place as opposed to current nationality.

Mr. WAXMAN. I know it’s a balancing act and we want the security of our country to be protected, but we want the bureaucracy

57

to do this efficiently, thoroughly, and certainly quickly, because

people are waiting for determinations and it affects their lives. So

I am going to send you the information about these cases, and it

would help us as Members of Congress help you to make sure we

do the right thing.

Thank you very much Mr. Chairman.

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

Mr. DEAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The comment I heard was

that you use only the FBI database and there was some reference

to State records, and I did not understand fully what your reference was there. Let me clarify where I am coming from. I understand that most States have their criminal records—are now being

incorporated into the Federal database; is that correct?

Mr. GARRITY. Talking about our Criminal Justice Information

Service Center in Virginia. Yes, sir. That handles our fingerprint

cards and also our NCIC. That’s where most States provide their

arrest information and disposition of a particular case, yes, sir.

Mr. DEAL. Have you also integrated the old INS record base,

which I presume now is under Homeland Security? And, for example, suppose someone has been deported previously from this country, but was not processed through the criminal system for criminal

charges, either at the State or Federal level, but deportation was

considered as the option in lieu of prosecution; do you have those

records available to you?

Mr. GARRITY. I believe we do, but let me check. If I am answering wrong, I will get back to you.

I believe that we do have access to that, that there is a relationship between those two systems.

Mr. DEAL. All right.

Another area that is of concern growing out of September 11 is

the student visa program. Would any of you choose to comment on

several aspects of that, first of all, the responsibility of the institution in the United States, the educational institution to which

these students are supposedly going, both in the initial application

process and then with regard to any followup requirement that we

have tried to tighten up on?

Would you comment on that part of the process?

Mr. CRONIN. Let me start by saying, Congressman, that I am not

an expert in the area. There is a whole separate office working on

implementation of the student and exchange visitor information

system.

My understanding is that, yes, there is much greater regulation

now on the issuance of certificates of eligibility to students. The

schools basically have to communicate to the Bureau, I think it is

the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that the

student has been accepted in the school; they have to identify the

student. That student has to have documentation when he or she

arrives which indicates that nexus has occurred between the student and the school.

And, of course, under the implementation of the new system, the

tracking begins with visa issuance overseas, through the port-ofentry and through arrival at the institution.

Mr. DEAL. So it is much more thorough followup, both from the

beginning through the end of the process, than it was?

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Mr. CRONIN. Absolutely, sir.

Mr. DEAL. Mr. Garrity, with regard to background checks, I presume that in large part you have to rely on the recordkeeping of

the country from which these individuals are coming for background information of what they may or may not have done in

their homeland?

Mr. GARRITY. No, sir. The background investigation that we do,

or the name check that we conduct, is against the FBI’s records.

Does the FBI have a record of having conducted an investigation

on this individual, or was this individual mentioned as a reference

in an FBI investigation?

It is not going to other countries and seeking information.

Mr. DEAL. What responsibility, if any, is placed on the Nation

from which this individual is coming to provide that kind of information in the initial screening process, or is there any requirement?

Mr. GARRITY. That would be from Ms. Jacobs, at the interview

process. I am not certain.

Ms. JACOBS. For the student visas on the interviews?

Mr. DEAL. No, I am talking about all visas.

Ms. JACOBS. You are asking about the requirement for additional

interviews?

Mr. DEAL. Well, let’s take somebody that is coming from a country, that has a lengthy criminal record—murder, manslaughter,

armed robbery—and they come in and apply for a visa. Now, they

are probably not going to show up on the FBI’s list, because they

didn’t commit those crimes in the United States.

What responsibility is there and what verification system do we

have in place to determine that background in the initial application process? Is there any responsibility placed on that country?

Ms. JACOBS. Most of the responsibility is placed on the applicant

to establish his or her eligibility for the visa. There are forms, application forms that the applicant fills out that ask specifically

about various grounds of ineligibility to include any criminal activity, other types of activities that would make them ineligible under

our law.

Mr. DEAL. So we assume then, that a felon is going to truthfully

answer those?

Ms. JACOBS. We assume that in large part.

We also have very good relations with law enforcement entities

in the countries where we have embassies. Sometimes they do

share information with us, and we would have that available to us.

Any time we got information like that, we would go ahead and

put it into our look-out system, so if this person came in to apply,

we would know about it.

Mr. DEAL. But the bottom line is, it sounds like there is no obligation on the country to provide that information, and that there

is no effort to seek out that information within the country of origin.

Ms. JACOBS. There is. Certainly, if we suspect anything, then we

go to the host government to get more information; and we do expect them to be responsive, and they usually are. I should say for

immigrant visa applicants, they do in fact have to present a police

certificate, a clean record if you will, before they get a visa.

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Mr. DEAL. So there is a distinction between the types of applications then?

Ms. JACOBS. Yes.

Mr. DEAL. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Watson.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, panel.

I am very interested in the visa process, having had some experience with it in the past. And I am concerned about maybe profiling,

and I am concerned about the impact on the travel business and

the free flow.

First, the problem that Congressman Waxman mentioned, the

people he has been trying to help. Why would somebody be held up

a year? What would be the process that would stall that visa approval for a year? That is the first question.

Can you respond, Ms. Jacobs?

Ms. JACOBS. No one should be held up for a year; I should say

that. Back last summer when we were instituting a lot of these

new procedures, the agencies involved did not necessarily have all

of the resources needed to handle the enormous growth in cases

that we had; and I think there were a number of cases that were

backlogged at that point. And I don’t know if the particular case

in question would fall in that category or not.

Sometimes another agency has a serious concern about an applicant, and then, as Mr. Garrity said, they will take whatever time

they need to go ahead and complete their analysis, their research,

before they get back to us with an answer.

So I don’t know if that particular case falls in that category.

I can tell you that the visa office now, once a case gets beyond

a certain time and we have not heard back from agencies, we go

back to them and ask what the status is.

So we are putting out those reminders.

Ms. WATSON. So you can go into the system on a specific case,

because I would think that the time ticking on this raises the suspicion that there is something not quite right about this applicant.

Ms. JACOBS. That could very well be, and I look forward to getting the details on the case, so we can look into it.

Ms. WATSON. Are the visa applications coming from a certain region in the Middle East treated differently—and I am reading your

list of visa types—than some of the other kinds of visa applications? Are we targeting areas where we have troubles, disputes, or

we know that there are people who are trying to defraud the system and so on?

But are we looking at these troubled areas differently?

Ms. JACOBS. I think after September 11 that there was an interagency process to take a look at applicants who might be higher

risk than others; and in fact there was a new check, security check,

instituted in January 2002, called Visas, which really gets at those

types of applicants, the ones considered to be of highest risk.

So I think, yes, the answer is that after September 11, we are

doing more checks of people that we consider to be high risk.

Ms. WATSON. Is there, and I think there has been, a quota placed

on visa applicants and visa approvals in various countries?

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Ms. JACOBS. No. We have never—our immigrant visa system is

based on worldwide limits, and in that regard there is——

Ms. WATSON. Can you explain ‘‘worldwide limits?’’ I guess that

is what I am getting to, using the wrong language.

Ms. JACOBS. OK. For people coming here for temporary reasons—

businessmen, tourists, students, visitors, people of that sort—there

is no quota at all. Everyone comes in, applies, and either does or

does not qualify for the visa based on the merits of the case.

For the immigrant system, there is a law set as a worldwide cap

on the number of people who can come in, and then within that cap

we control the numbers of visas that are issued every year.

Ms. WATSON. Let me give you a for instance.

My office gets quite a few contacts on visa issuance from the continent of Africa. When you talk about worldwide limits, what are

the criteria that are used to put a limit on, say, countries from the

continent of Africa versus Western countries?

Ms. JACOBS. There is no—it is a per-country cap. It doesn’t apply

to any particular region. It is a worldwide cap that is set by law.

Ms. WATSON. OK. Well, let’s deal with the continent of Africa.

Ms. JACOBS. Every country in Africa would have a certain number of immigrant numbers allowed every year, as would any other

country. There is no—it is not divided up by region. There is no difference between the regions.

Ms. WATSON. What is the meaning of the ‘‘worldwide limit?’’ Give

me a definition.

Ms. JACOBS. That is a cap that the law puts on the number of

immigrants who can come into the country in any year.

Ms. WATSON. Who can come into the country?

Ms. JACOBS. Who can immigrate, who can move here permanently.

Ms. WATSON. It is taken nation by nation?

Ms. JACOBS. It is a worldwide cap. And to distribute the numbers

evenly, it is done on a country; there is a maximum number that

each country can use.

Ms. WATSON. That is what I would like to know more about. I

will put a request for information in writing.

Ms. JACOBS. OK.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Who was next over on this side?

I think Mr. Ruppersberger was here, Mr. Bell, and then Ms.

Sanchez.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First thing, the issue of consular offices that are checking on the

visa applicants. Do those consular offices have the technology and

the information readily available to determine if a waiver should

be granted?

In other words, what I am getting to, is the amount of volume

that you deal with, is the technology there to do what is needed

to be done in the consular offices throughout the world?

Ms. JACOBS. Consular officers have a number of automated tools

to help them do their job. We have given them computerized systems that help them in the adjudication process, help them speed

up data entry, help them speed up and do name checks, do the teleVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:30 Oct 23, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89397.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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grams that have to come back for name checks; all of that is automated.

So, yes, I think we have tried to automate as much of the processing as possible to make it easier for them.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. As much as possible. What I am getting to

next is the issue of, say, a terrorist suspect who might be trying

to get into the United States.

Are the databases sophisticated enough that the consular office

at that front line would be able to check on these suspects?

Ms. JACOBS. Everyone who comes for a visa is checked through

our look-out system. And that system has doubled since September

11 because of all of the information that we have received from

other agencies.

On terrorists in particular—that particular category of look-out

has increased substantially since September 11—we depend on the

other agencies to provide us the information. And we have had—

after September 11, as I said, the database itself has actually doubled because of all of the increase in data-sharing that has taken

place.

So, yes, if another agency knows about or suspects that someone

is a terrorist and has shared that information with us, that information would be readily available.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. In the average situation, if someone is

there, does that system tie into, say, an FBI system or to your own

intelligence-type system or to CIA?

Are we sophisticated at that front level with our technology?

Ms. JACOBS. Right.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Probably not.

Ms. JACOBS. No. The system doesn’t actually tie into the FBI or

CIA, but we do have a very healthy system whereby CIA shares

information with us, on terrorists in particular. It is called the tipoff system, and we know immediately how to handle those cases.

They come back to Washington for a review.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. It is almost like the issue of port security.

You have to deal with it at the beginning stage, and this is the

front line. And it seems to me that we should be working a lot closer.

I think that the—in my experience, being around in government

and law enforcement, that the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, local, State,

they are all working together, and better than I have ever seen it,

because there always were some territorial disputes.

But in the volume that you have and that we have to deal with,

it seems that we have to start really focusing on the resources of

technology and tie into that system so there will be red flags or

alarms that will be set off right away. And that would help.

OK. Let me get into another area, because I won’t be here for the

second round. The issue of reaching out to the business community

with respect to what we are talking about. We need a balance. We

have to keep our commerce going. But, you know, since September

11 a lot of things have changed. So we have to have that balance.

I just know in the area of—the region that I represent, we have

two major teaching hospitals, Johns Hopkins and University of

Maryland—thousands and thousands of employees there; I think

Johns Hopkins is 20,000 or so—and constantly they have individVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:30 Oct 23, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89397.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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uals that need to come, from a research point of view or whatever;

and it is as important to them, I am sure, as to other businesses.

Has there been a—some type of government program to reach

out to the business community to try to understand the issues,

other than just a hearing like this, and maybe even reach out to

the business community to help us develop systems that would

help and expedite, and also ask the business community to even

help from a financial point of view?

It seems to me that a partnership here might really make a difference and get things moving a lot quicker than just the typical

government bureaucracy situation.

Ms. JACOBS. We at the State Department have made a special effort, I think, to meet with business, to meet with the travel and

tourism representatives, to meet with the schools, academics, people interested in bringing researchers and scientists here to the

country. Assistant Secretary Harty has met with these groups, I

have met with them, and we have tried very hard to explain to

them why we are doing what we are doing now with these new security requirements.

And we do listen to them. We have a very I think healthy exchange on problem cases that we are trying to resolve together.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. It seems to me that that needs to be a

strong effort and hopefully we will move forward there.

Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Bell.

Mr. BELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you very much

for holding this hearing on what I think is an extremely important

issue. I want to followup on some of the questions raised by my

good friend from Maryland, Mr. Ruppersberger, because it is not

just the travel and tourism industry that is suffering under the

new rules. Obviously, there are businesses, primarily in the medical community, who are experiencing extreme consequences as a

result of the new measures.

I represent a District in Texas that has the largest medical center in the world, the Texas Medical Center. And they are routinely

calling about various problems that they face. And the problems

are really twofold. And Ms. Jacobs, I think you are aware of this,

because you appeared before the Science Committee last March,

and many of these issues were raised; and we have doctors and researchers who have come to the United States on various types of

visas and return home for personal reasons and then find that they

can’t get back to the United States, causing significant personnel

problems for the various institutions as a result.

And, of course, then you have foreign patients. And the Texas

Medical Center had relied for a long time for a substantial portion

of their business on patients coming from the Middle East; that

was one of the primary areas where patients would come from.

And now these patients can no longer afford to wait for an answer and are going to Europe to seek care in many instances. And

I heard just this week that Middle Eastern nations, realizing the

situation, are now reaching out to medical institutions here in the

United States and asking them if they would like to come and partVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:30 Oct 23, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89397.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ner with existing medical institutions in the Middle East to offer

care there so people won’t have to come to the Middle East.

And so from my standpoint, while we are all interested in increased security and salute and support those efforts, I think it is

fairly clear that we are starting to enter into the unintended consequences stage. I don’t think it was ever the intent of officials in

the United States to be sending business back to the Middle East,

business that would have been coming to the United States, or to

severely impact tourism dollars in the United States.

And when you appeared before the Science Committee, Ms. Jacobs, it was my understanding that the State Department was well

aware of those problems, that you were taking them into consideration and that steps would be taken to do something about the

problem.

And so I ask you here today, what has been done in these last

almost 4 months?

Ms. JACOBS. We have taken, I think, a number of steps on cases,

especially unresolved cases as I mentioned earlier, to continue following up with the other agencies involved in the name check process, to make them aware that certain cases have been pending for

a long time.

We have, I think, engaged in outreach in all of the countries

about visa requirements, the processing requirements. I know that

within the appointment systems, that are being set up by posts,

that they do give consideration to people for medical cases, for example, true emergencies, people who need to come here quickly. So

I think that within the system, we are taking the steps that we can

to try to expedite processing.

I think once we have more electronic data-sharing between the

name check agencies that a lot of these problems are going to be

resolved.

Mr. BELL. And as far as data-sharing goes, what steps are being

taken to perhaps expedite that process?

Ms. JACOBS. We at the visa office, at least as a preliminary step,

are trying to eliminate the need for telegrams. We are trying now

to use our consolidated database to extract people who need name

checks and pass that information on electronically to the other

agencies involved in the name check process. We hope to have that

up and running by the beginning of next year.

Eventually we hope that we are all talking to each other, perhaps through the new system that has been set up, the OSI system.

Mr. BELL. What about an idea that I think was mentioned and

discussed at the Science Committee hearing, this idea of a medical—a special medical visa. Has that been pursued at all or discussed further?

Ms. JACOBS. I am not sure that we did discuss a specific visa for

medical cases. Normally, we have to use the visa categories that

exist in the immigration law. So there wouldn’t be a way to create

a new category. But certainly we can take steps for true emergencies to try to get those cases handled as quickly as possible. I

think all of our embassies and consulates do that.

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Mr. BELL. Why could a new category not be considered, if the

need is appearing to be so great that we need to move in that direction?

Ms. JACOBS. I think it could be considered. I think it is something that would require legislative action to create a new category.

Mr. BELL. Is that anything that has been discussed by the State

Department?

And tell me, do you believe I am off base? Are these just unique

circumstances because I represent an area with a medical center,

or are these complaints that you all are hearing all across the Nation?

Ms. JACOBS. Well, I think that they probably tie in with the

other complaints that we have heard about visa delays in general.

I think all of these are because of all of the new security checks

that have been put into place after September 11.

I think, to the extent that all of us can make this an electronic

process, it is going to eliminate a lot of the problems that occur

now because of technical glitches, the need to manually enter data,

manipulate data; I think that is the real answer here.

Mr. BELL. And, Mr. Chairman, I know my time has expired.

Let me just close by saying, I hope, because I would disagree that

it is just outreach efforts—the people that I represent, they understand what is required, but they also understand what is it doing

in real-life terms to their businesses; and I hope that we are not

just giving lip service to it and that in another 4 or 6 months you

will be back before this committee or another committee testifying

to the same old problems.

Some of the processes are going to have to change in order to

deal with the problem; and I hope that the State Department understands that and will be taking the necessary steps. Thank you.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Let me say—I am going to recognize Ms. Watson in a second—

one out of five adults in my congressional district was born in a foreign country. This is impacting their lives as well. So a lot of us

have a keen interest in this, and we are going to continue to watch

it vigilantly. And that is why we appreciate your being here, but

there is a lot of concern that we hear from our constituents. So I

appreciate your questions.

Ms. Watson.

Ms. WATSON. Just a clarification on this issue.

Under your visa types, you have a B2 visa. And I don’t know if

it would relate to the Congressman’s question or not. But it says

‘‘for aliens coming for medical treatment.’’ Could that be a visa category that could be extended for students coming in for medical

school or for other kinds of related medical reasons?

I am just wondering if the B2 type could be used for his suggestion or recommendation.

Ms. JACOBS. The B2 visa is, in fact, the one that we do use for

people coming for medical treatment or medical emergencies. There

is a different category for students. There is a long alphabet of different types of visas. But, yes, there is a visa category right now

that would allow people to come here for medical treatment.

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Ms. WATSON. Rather than developing a new category, could this

not be extended or broadened and fit into the B2 category?

Ms. JACOBS. I think it is already included.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Clay, any questions?

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me ask about—Ms. Jacobs, the worldwide limits on visas. Let’s take the continent of Africa. Do you have limits on the number of visas issued for people

that come from the continent of Africa?

Ms. JACOBS. No, sir, we don’t. For nonimmigrant applicants,

there are no limits there.

There are certain categories of temporary workers where there

are limits set by Congress, but again, those are worldwide; they do

not apply to any particular region or continent.

The immigrant visas are by law set at a certain—there is a certain cap each year on the number of people who can come in as

immigrants, and those numbers are distributed among the different countries equally. There is no difference between what an

African country would get, or any other country.

Mr. CLAY. So there is a cap that they hit, and then you shut it

off? Is that what happens?

Ms. JACOBS. Right.

Mr. CLAY. Let me ask Mr. Garrity, how long does it take—what

is the running time when a visa expires, and I guess you all are

notified and then the—I mean, what is the running time as far as

finding this person whose visa has expired and then processing it,

I guess for deportation or whatever?

Mr. GARRITY. I think you want to direct that question to Mr.

Cronin.

Mr. CLAY. OK, Mr. Cronin, if you could help me with that.

Mr. CRONIN. Sure, Congressman.

Basically, we do try to prioritize the cases that we track in terms

of persons overstaying their visas, to look if there are national security implications, to look if there are other priority indicators

that would necessitate actual dispatch of agents to attempt to locate the individual, to arrest him, to deport him.

There are a large number of overstays. We have—the Bureau of

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has roughly something on

the area of 5,000 agents nationwide to enforce the immigration and

customs laws. So there is a necessity to prioritize those cases, to

be sure we are focusing on persons who are criminals, who present

security threats.

Basically those are the cases that would trigger the kind of

proactive investigation of an overstay. Certainly we have individuals who encounter local law enforcement, who might come into an

immigration office or something like that, but basically there is no

set period or no set time during which this would happen.

It is a matter of prioritization on an enforcement basis.

Mr. CLAY. What is your success rate of locating these individuals?

Mr. CRONIN. I would have to get back to you on that, in terms

of specific data. I can’t give it to you off the top of my head. But

generally if there is a case of this nature, I think the success rate

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is fairly high. The agents are fairly unflagging in their attempt to

locate and find those individuals when a specific threat is indicated.

Mr. CLAY. What is the running time as far as locating them?

Mr. CRONIN. That would vary from case to case, Congressman.

I really can’t give you a specific number.

Mr. CLAY. So you prioritize individuals based on background and

criminal information, and then, what, you go out and find them?

And——

Mr. CRONIN. They will go out and attempt to locate the individual.

Mr. CLAY. But you can’t tell me how successful you are in getting

them?

Mr. CRONIN. Again, as far as I know, when the agents are looking for someone specifically, when there is a national security reason to locate someone, there is—I mean, there is no limit to the efforts that are placed on trying to locate the individual.

They are certainly not always successful. And I can’t give you—

and I am not sure that there would be a way to give an estimate

or data on the success rate in terms of that.

Certainly I will go back and attempt to get whatever we have on

that.

Mr. CLAY. I would like to see it.

We have got visa types, a little sheet here. What types of visas

did the hijackers of September 11 have?

Mr. CRONIN. If I recall correctly, I think one had a student visa.

Most of the others entered as visitors.

Mr. CLAY. As visitors?

Mr. CRONIN. Yes.

Mr. CLAY. That stay is for how long?

Mr. CRONIN. Normally it would depend on the category. A B1 visitor for business is admitted for a period of time set by the inspector at the time port-of-entry. That can vary according to what the

person states the nature of their business is and how much time

they need.

Persons coming in as tourists under a B2 visa are automatically

admitted for 6 months.

Mr. CLAY. All of theirs had expired, correct?

Mr. CRONIN. No. No. Several were in status.

Mr. CLAY. In status. All right.

Thank you very much.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Ms. Miller, any questions?

OK. We will move on to the next panel. Why don’t we take a 2-

minute recess and get the next panel up. Thank you very much for

staying with us.

[Recess.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much. We have our next

panel.

If you will rise with me, it is the policy of the committee that the

witnesses be sworn.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Please be seated.

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I think you know the rules, 5 minutes, and then we can get right

to questions. There is a lot of interest among committee members

on this subject, and we very much appreciate your being here

today.

Mr. Marks, we will start with you and move straight on down.

STATEMENTS OF JOHN A. MARKS, NATIONAL CHAIR, TRAVEL

INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA; RANDEL K. JOHNSON,

VICE PRESIDENT OF LABOR, IMMIGRATION AND EMPLOYEE

BENEFITS, U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE; AND RICHARD J.

PETTLER, PARTNER, FRAGOMEN, DEL REY, BERNSEN &

LOEWY, P.C.

Mr. MARKS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking

Member Waxman and members of the committee. I appreciate the

opportunity to testify before you on several recent decisions by the

Federal Government concerning visa processing and entry into the

United States for international visitors.

My name is John Marks. I am national chairman of the Travel

Industry Association of America. And I am here to testify on TIA’s

behalf. I am also the president and CEO of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. TIA is the national nonprofit organization representing all components of the travel and tourism industry whose mission is to promote and facilitate increased travel to

and within the United States.

International business and leisure travel to the United States is

a vital component of our national economy. In 2002, over 41 million

international visitors generated some $88 billion in expenditures,

$12 billion in Federal, State and local tax revenues, accounted for

1 million jobs nationwide, and a $7.7 billion positive balance of

trade.

The U.S. travel industry is struggling to survive in an environment where international travel to the United States is down nearly 20 percent since the terrorist attacks of September 2001. U.S.

jobs have been lost. Despite this dire situation, the U.S. Department of State has decided to move forward with two new initiatives

without sufficient resources and without the necessary outreach

and communication. If implemented as planned, we believe these

initiatives will deter legitimate low-risk international travelers

from visiting our Nation.

The government’s decisions are, first, to increase the number of

personal interviews for nonimmigrant visa applicants and, second,

to require a machine-readable passport for Visa Waiver Program

travelers.

I would like to emphasize, we support efforts to improve U.S. national security, but we also believe there must be a better balance

that also recognizes the need to promote U.S. economic security.

While personal interview rates now vary, I look to South Korea

as an example of how the interview rule will hurt international

travel to the United States. Only 27 percent of business and tourist

visa applicants are currently interviewed. If a 100 percent visa

interview policy were to be implemented for the U.S. Embassy in

Seoul with no additional resources, TIA estimates this would result

in a loss of approximately 114,000 travelers, or one of every six KoVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:30 Oct 23, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89397.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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rean visitors. Financially, this would mean a loss of $205 million

in expenditures from the South Korean travel market alone.

Expand this to other travel markets, and I think it is easy to see

how the increase in interviews will cost the U.S. travel and tourism

industry hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of lost jobs.

The second decision concerns the Visa Waiver Program. By law,

starting October 1, 2003, Visa Waiver travelers must possess machine-readable passports for entry into the United States. We support increasing the number of machine-readable passports in circulation. However, this new requirement will affect millions of

international travelers, particularly in countries which have only

recently begun issuing machine-readable passports.

The State Department was granted the authority to waive this

deadline in the event it would disrupt travel from those countries

that had just started issuing the newer passports. The travel industry is absolutely dismayed to learn that the State Department

will not utilize this authority. The State Department only recently

announced this decision to the international traveling public.

With travelers booking their trips as far in advance as 6 months

and travel companies making their business plans and purchases

even father in advance, a 3-month notice is just insufficient. This

lack of communication is particularly problematic for the U.S. airline industry, which is required by law to board only travelers who

hold valid documentation.

The lack of communication on this rule even extends to the Department of Homeland Security. As of mid-June, Homeland Security officials were not prepared to state whether arriving visitors

with the older, nonmachine-readable passports would be deported

or allowed to enter the United States.

TIA calls on the State Department to implement immediately the

following solutions to avoid serious disruption in international travel to the United States: TIA requests the Secretary of State to

delay implementation of the increase in personal appearances for

nonimmigrant visa applicants until such time as additional resources are requested and received from Congress.

An increased rate of personal interviews should be phased in

only as additional personnel and facilities are made available at

each consulate and embassy.

TIA urges the Secretary of State to exercise the waiver authority

granted by Congress and delay the machine-readable passport requirement by at least 18 months for countries that have begun

issuing machine-readable passports in 2000 or later.

In conclusion, TIA and the U.S. travel industry strongly support

the efforts of the Federal Government to protect our homeland. We

stand ready to work with Congress and the administration to develop and implement policies that prevent the entry of terrorists,

while truly facilitating the entry of tens of millions of legitimate

business and leisure travelers who provide a great economic, social

and political benefit for this country.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I look

forward to your questions.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Marks follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I would

like to extend our thanks to you and the other members of the committee for holding this hearing on projected problems of delayed

entry for foreign nationals traveling to the United States for legitimate business purposes, with a particular focus on the visa

issuance process.

I am Randel Johnson, vice president for labor, immigration and

employee benefits for the U.S. Chamber. And let me note that I do

represent the Chamber on the Data Management Improvement Act

Task Force, which was established by the Congress to study entry

and exit problems at our Nation’s borders; I am Chair of the Americans for Better Borders Coalition; and I am a member of the Board

of Directors of the National Immigration Forum.

Well, as other speakers have made clear, we are all aware of the

new environment in which not only businesses but all of us must

live post-September 11. The need for security to protect our homeland is very real, and the U.S. Chamber has been part of that role.

We pledged our support to the administration early on, and to

the Congress. We are still working with them. We worked closely

on the development of the Department of Homeland Security legislation, and ‘‘key voted’’ that legislation in support in both the

House and the Senate.

Now, at that time, certain provisions, as many of you know, were

included in the legislation, which reassured, I think, quiet concerns

among the business community that in implementing the Department, many would pursue a Fortress America mentality and would

not weigh the potential negative economic impact on the country as

a whole, which could result from significant increases at our borders, in delays at our borders.

And since the Homeland Department has come up and running,

the decisionmakers within the government certainly have repeatedly assured those of us on the outside that the government will

continue to search for ways to both expedite—to improve security

and to expedite or at least not significantly hinder legitimate international commerce, travel and immigration.

However, I believe that the common concern or thread that you

will hear today is a growing perception among the private sector

that words are not matching the policies that have been announced, and that the policies coming down the road—many of

which you went over in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman.

For example, I have just returned from a trip to El Paso, as part

of my work on the DMIA task force, and these people—we met

with various stakeholders in the community, and the State and

local governments, and these people have the view that the government is simply not listening to their concerns. And they are in a

state of panic looking at what the new entry/exit system may look

like.

That is not atypical of experiences I have seen up in Buffalo and

Detroit. There is concern that no one is listening, much less understanding that there is a way of life, there are questions of the environment, and the fabric and the future of a community are at stake

here when these government decisions are made.

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Now, none of this is to demean those in the government agencies

that are struggling with very difficult questions. But I think we can

all acknowledge that those within government—and I spent half of

my career with the government—can isolate the real impact of

their decisions and accept that impact as an acceptable cost to

them of reaching a goal. Now, the fact that Congress, in some

cases, imposes perhaps unrealistic deadlines on these same agencies, needless to say, makes that rationale all the easier sometimes.

Now, in the business community, we hesitate to be critical in this

area of the government because, frankly, we are then sometimes

accused of being not sensitive enough to national security concerns.

Well, we are sensitive, but there are problems here and they need

to be laid out. And in my written testimony, I have covered many

examples which we have gathered from the American AmChams,

which is the American Chambers abroad, from member companies.

Each one is an individual story and each one, taken individually,

may not seem like that big of a deal, except to those people who

are immediately affected. But taken as a whole, I think they accurately paint a picture, a mosaic that everything is not as kosher or

OK as the prior panel seemed to imply.

I mean, there are problems out there. And certainly many of the

questions of the Members made that clear also.

Now, why is all of this important? Should it matter if people can

travel to the United States in a timely manner, even after the tragic day of September 11? Well, yes, it does, because the Nation’s

business, their workers and the economy benefit from such international commerce.

It is important that a potential customer from overseas can visit

the United States to examine and, hopefully, purchase products. It

is important that visitors can come and, frankly, spend their money

here and not in other countries. It is important sometimes that the

business community has access to available labor when there is not

domestic labor available.

Now, Congress has a visa system established, but a visa system

that doesn’t work because of significant delays is not a visa system

at all. So we need to find a way to make the law that is on the

books work. We made our concerns to the State Department and

other government agencies known. We frankly feel that our concerns are not even given a fair hearing, that the concerns of the

business community are not weighted as heavily as they should be.

That being said, we look forward certainly to working with the

government as we work through these difficult issues in the future,

and certainly this hearing is helpful to us in doing that. We appreciate that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Pettler, thanks for being with us.

Mr. PETTLER. Good morning, Chairman Davis, Ranking Member

Waxman, distinguished members of the committee. These hearings

provide an opportunity to begin a dialog for change, a partnership,

so to speak, between business and government, the common objective of which is to maintain U.S. competitiveness and economic interests while improving the security of our borders and the effectiveness of our visa process.

Since September 11, it has become increasingly evident that our

government agencies are not communicating sufficiently with one

another. The first step toward a solution is to make sure that all

interested government stakeholders are provided needed input to

policy and process decisions. Unfortunately, this is not happening

on a consistent basis.

For example, under the Visas Mantis screening process, information elicited by consular officers is forwarded for necessary technical analysis by the Department of Commerce through industry

and security. The Department of State has formed a working group

to address these protocols, but for whatever reason, the Department of Commerce is not a full participant. This is simply not effective from a planning or an implementation standpoint.

Second, we need to avoid duplication of agency that causes unnecessary delay. Foreign nationals who require an export license

for access to sensitive technology undergo an extremely rigorous

background review as part of the licensing process. However, when

that same individual applies for a visa, a de novo review is conducted without regard to the previous clearance.

In another example, the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration

Services conducts a background review prior to approval of certain

nonimmigrant visa petitions. The BCIS clears the individual, approves the petition; but when the subject takes the approval and

applies for a visa at a consulate, the Department of State conducts

ostensibly the same check a second time, predictably with the same

negative result.

The consolidation of visa policy in the Department of Homeland

Security provides a unique opportunity for increased coordination,

yet it is not clear that all interested agencies and bureaus are

being consulted or that agency processes are in synch. This clearly

must change.

A second area of focus should be industry-government cooperation. We recommend that an industry-government advisory panel

be established. This panel could, for example, explore

precertification programs to streamline all or parts of the visa application process for companies with proven immigration and export control compliance programs.

A precedent for this approach exists in the customs arena. Under

the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism initiative, participating companies play a cooperative role and receive expedited

clearances and a reduced number of inspections for their cargos. A

similar effort should be considered with respect to the movement

of people.

Improved communication with the U.S. business community is

necessary for both corporate planning and corporate security. Companies can prepare and make the necessary contingency plans if

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they simply know the rules sufficiently in advance. From a corporate security standpoint, companies want and need to know

whether an employee poses a security risk in order to take necessary steps to mitigate possible breaches and to protect the propriety interests and those of their customers and business partner.

As we have heard, effective August 1, new guidelines will substantially increase the number of nonimmigrant visa applicants required to appear for personal interviews. What had been a 1-day

process to certain folks may now require weeks, if not months, for

an appointment followed by an additional hiatus for security reviews to be conducted.

The threshold question is whether universal interviews are useful and necessary. Leaving that aside and assuming the guidelines

are implemented, what can be done to create efficiencies? Ideally,

a visa applicant anywhere in the world should be able to go on the

Internet, schedule an appointment utilizing an automated appointment system, and at the same time, submit his or her visa application online; upon receipt of the application, the consul would immediately commence any relevant security review so that, barring any

complications, the visa could be issued on the day of the interview.

Automated and electronic processes save time and government

resources. Electronic filing and other innovations such as digital

signatures prevent fraud and protect the integrity of documents.

These technologies must be linked with other planned technology

enhancements, such as biometric identifiers, machine-readable

passports and visas, and the U.S. VISIT system to ensure a coordinated effort.

The U.S. business community has a shared interest in national

security and achieving efficiencies in global mobility. U.S. industry,

with its advanced technology, stands ready and willing to participate in a cooperative effort with government agencies. If such a

partnership can work in the customs arena, it can and must work

here as well.

I have submitted a full statement for the record and look forward

to answering any questions you may have. Thank you very much.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pettler follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me just start. Mr. Pettler suggested

a private industry advisory panel.

What are your opinions on that, Mr. Marks?

Mr. MARKS. Excuse me?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Pettler has suggested a private industry advisory panel.

Mr. MARKS. I think the concept, Mr. Chairman, of including the

private sector in the decisionmaking process and in the guidance

of the program is a very good idea, because we have been left somewhat in the cold after a long and very good relationship with the

State Department.

In this particular case, it has just been a directive, this is what

it will be, with little opportunity to share with those people that

influence travel around this world and those folks that travel to the

United States of America; and we are left a little bit holding the

bag in this case.

But we just haven’t been able to tell our story. Had there been

a private sector panel involved from the get-go, I think we may

have mitigated some of these issues.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Airlines are the first line of defense in

passport checks. What are they saying about the upcoming requirements and is there any impact on bookings?

Mr. MARKS. Well, clearly, anything that we do that deters booking an airline passage to America is going to hurt our economy.

You have to remember, we are in a very competitive environment. This isn’t just a matter of my home city of San Francisco

competing for business against Los Angeles or New York, but we

are competing against Spain. We are competing against Switzerland. We are competing against all areas of the world, and the

more difficult we make it for someone to enter this country, the

harder it will be and the more it will cost us economically.

Now, at the same time, we are extraordinarily sensitive to homeland security. But it shouldn’t be an either/or situation; both are

terribly important. And we just need to be perceived as something

other than Fortress America.

And I would just add, I was participating in a press conference

in Geneva at a Global Summit on Peace Through Tourism earlier

this year. And that was the first question asked of me as I sat

alongside the former mayor of Tel Aviv and a minister from Jordan, fully assuming they would get the first question. But, rather,

it came to me, and it was, ‘‘Tell us what it is like in Fortress America.’’

That doesn’t send a very good sales message.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. No. But to what extent do travelers seem

to be choosing other countries for tourism, to go to on vacation or

to conduct business as a result of our increased requirements? Are

you seeing that?

Mr. MARKS. Well, the——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I will ask that to you and Mr. Johnson.

Mr. MARKS. There is no question that our country has lost market share. In fact, we have lost some 37 percent of market share

of world travel and tourism in the last decade. There are many

things that can probably come into play here, one being that this

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country has not been as effective marketing from a national perspective as maybe others have. Congress has just put $50 million to the Department of Commerce to, hopefully, solve some of this problem. But we are doing

that also at a time when we are making it more difficult in order

to achieve entry into this country.

The longer the lines that we have for people applying for visas—

and those situations where the machine-readable passports are not

yet totally in vogue, if you will, because this was going to begin in

2007; it was we, after the USA Patriot Act moved us forward to

2003.

It just seems to me, based on the feedback that we have gotten

from international tour operators—and we were just together at

what we call the ‘‘International Pow-Wow,’’ which is the one time

of the year our country brings together about 4,000 people to sell

and buy the U.S. travel product. For the more than 1,000 buyers

that were here, they are very, very concerned about our ability to

facilitate their travel, particularly from those countries that require

visas.

I will give you a very specific example. In Brazil, we have one

embassy and three consulates. We are now requiring personal

interviews in Brazil. And, again, personal interviews can work if it

is—the personnel are there to do it. But in a directive from Secretary Powell to all of the consulates, it is very clear in that May

21 directive that this is to be done without any additional expense

or workload or overtime. So I don’t know how we do that in Brazil.

A family not living in Sao Paulo, Rio, Brasilia or one other city

that I don’t recall, that—where we have a consulate, it seems to

me that they are going to have to make a trip just for the purpose

of having the personal interview to make the ultimate trip—to

come to America. Now, if I am one of those families in a very large

country that has to go through that time and expense, I am going

to think very hard about that. I may choose to go somewhere where

it is just a little bit easier.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Any comments from you?

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, with regard to the advisory council—and certainly we support that concept—I have seen enough of

those to know that, depending on how the details are written in the

implementing legislation, how they are staffed will determine

whether or not the agency involved actually listens to that council.

So in a setting like that, some attention has to be given to those

kinds of details. Certainly we would like to be helpful on that.

With regard to problems out there what we are hearing, you

know, we do have these examples in our testimony. But I think the

better test is where the rubber meets the road. We are hearing

from the American Chambers abroad, we are hearing from our

member companies that they are having serious issues with what

is going on and we are trying to meet their needs.

They don’t come to the Chamber until they have really exhausted

their own resources to try and work through these problems. We

are sort of at the top here in Washington, removed, and it is kind

of like a last—let’s go to Washington and get some help because we

can’t figure out this mess.

That is what brings us here today. It is a serious problem.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. My time is up. I am going to

recognize Mr. Bell.

Mr. BELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Marks, I am curious if you were here for the previous panel.

I believe you were. You may have heard me refer to the phrase,

‘‘unintended consequences,’’ and I guess if there was no communication whatsoever prior to the new measures being implemented,

it was sort of impossible to avoid unintended consequences. Would

you agree with that?

Mr. MARKS. Absolutely, Congressman. Like you, we in San Francisco have a large medical center at the University of California

that has had some similar issues that you shared earlier. There is

no question that we have not done a good job of telling this story.

And the travel and tourism industry has not been asked to help engage in telling that story.

We have 37 Visit USA committees around the world, people

whose only intent in life is to help direct visitation to our country.

These are people that work at no cost on our behalf. They represent both U.S. companies and they represent international tour

operators that send people here. That is really the communications

link.

And we have some other issues falling through the cracks when

it comes to a Web site. I mean, we have a Web site that links to

visas. It is in English. You know, we have been promised that this

was going to be put into five different languages, but it is in

English. If you are sitting in Japan or in Germany, you just can’t

assume that everyone speaks English.

And there are also some linkage problems, we understand, between our consulates in the field and the State Department.

Mr. BELL. And just so it will be clear also, since I talked about

the—what the impact on the medical industry, previously—it is not

an expression that I am necessarily fond of—medical tourism really

doesn’t paint the picture of everyone’s favorite vacation.

But that is a very real piece of business here in the United

States, is it not, people traveling to the United States for medical

reasons?

Mr. MARKS. Congressman, it is a very real piece of business, because probably in 99.9 percent of the cases, the person seeking the

treatment, consultation, whatever it may be, has family members

traveling with him or her, along the way.

And so, in fact, they are filling hotel rooms, they are eating in

restaurants and, yes, they are probably doing some things along

the way to maybe take their mind off the seriousness of what the

original intent of that trip may have been. So it is very real.

Mr. BELL. Is there any kind of estimate that any of you may

have on the dollars associated with that kind of tourism?

Mr. MARKS. I would not have that available.

Mr. BELL. And we have talked about outreach efforts now, and

working with business to let them know about the new requirements. But in your way of thinking—and any of you can speak to

this—is that really the problem?

There seems—at least in my district there seems to be a full understanding of what the requirements are. It is just, the impact

that the requirements are having is what the concern is.

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And my question is, is there any discussion taking place in that

regard now between the private sector now that we have realized

some of the unintended consequences to address those?

Mr. MARKS. I think I would start by coming right back to the fact

that, as Mr. Johnson said, that is one of the reasons I think we are

here today. And the fact simply is, when something is put forward,

it will happen on this date, it is not widely circulated; I don’t believe it is widely circulated amongst those of us on this end.

We certainly understand it, but the message is being received in

these countries that are sending visitors our way in a very negative

way; and what just doesn’t seem to connect is the fact that the

State Department was given by Congress the ability to waive machine-readable passports, a timing issue that will allow them to

have an orderly transition to this. Because everybody agrees this

is the right way to go; no one will disagree with that, I don’t believe.

On the issue of the personal interviews for the visa scenario, that

is a whole different issue. That is a resource issue. And we are not

objecting to the personal interviews, although from a marketing

perspective, it isn’t viewed as friendly. We certainly accept and understand that.

So if you are going to do it, you have to do it in such a way that

people have the ability to be assured, if I have an appointment on

this day, I can get a visa, it will be done in a timely fashion unless

they find something out; and we just don’t have the people to do

that.

If we are doing 27 percent out of South Korea, and they say they

are maxed, how can we expect to reach the—I think it is a 90 percent guide that has been required. How do we get there?

Mr. BELL. I think the emphasis has to be on the timely fashion

aspect, because that seems to be what is driving people to other

places. And as you point out, there is global competition in all of

those areas now.

But thank you all for being here today. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mrs. Miller.

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I might pick up a bit

on what my colleague from Texas, I think, was trying to drive at

as well; and that is just education, I suppose, of letting people

know exactly what the requirements are and what their expectations are.

And to the Chamber, Mr. Johnson, I am just wondering, are you

working with your local chamber affiliates throughout the Nation

as well as overseas in some of your consular offices?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, we are in the entry/exit issue in the U.S.

visa system. I think, coming back to the prior questioning, too, if

we had better lead time on these announcements from State and

other groups, we could then—two things.

Frankly, we would like to get some lead time so we can have

some input with regard to, hey, maybe this isn’t the right way to

go. And in doing that, we could collect information from our American chambers abroad and local chambers—and in this case, it

would be mostly local along the borders—and get some feedback as

to some factors you might want to look at.

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If you are not willing to go that far, at least give us lead time

so that we can get it out to the American chambers abroad and our

local and State chambers. We have that apparatus and fortunately

most of it now is on e-mail, which is how we are able to gather the

information we did for our testimony.

But give us the stuff ahead of time.

And maybe they don’t want to because maybe the feedback might

be negative. But that is how people are going to learn about these

things.

And the employers over here in the medical community, they are

very sophisticated. I would say they are atypical. They have lawyers tracking this stuff. But most people, they just want to go on

a trip or come to the country for a while.

Mrs. MILLER. Is there a public hearing time now, through State,

if you are talking about some lead time, whether from the Department of State or even from the Department of Homeland Security?

Obviously they need to communicate better in some format.

Maybe you can give us some feedback on what kind of lead do

you need, actually?

Mr. JOHNSON. I don’t know of any hearings that they’ve set up

on any of these issues. I am on the Data Management Information

Task Force and so we go on our separate trips to listen to stakeholders and try to give the feedback back to DHS.

Mrs. MILLER. A comment as well to Mr. Pettler: I know you were

speaking about some of the different licensing requirements that

many of the other agencies might have, and I think you talked

about driver’s license requirements. Let me mention to you, as a

former Michigan Secretary of State whose job it was to do motor

vehicle administration, particularly after September 11, we found

that—it was actually the case in our State, and I have now subsequently found in most States, that there is a requirement, even if

the Department of Motor Vehicles knows that you are in the country illegally, if you are here as an illegal alien, we are required, for

example, under Michigan law to give you a driver’s license or a

State identification card; and we have been unable to change the

law in Michigan. That will be one of the things I will be working

on as a Member of Congress, the possibility of a national driver’s

license.

The licensing requirements are probably the most porous security breach that we have in our Nation as well. We would like to—

I think many of the people in the motor vehicle business would like

to work more closely with perhaps licensing people that are here

as people with visas and that type of thing. I just make that comment.

Also, Mr. Marks, one other question as well. You mentioned—trying to take some notes you were mentioning what I felt were startling numbers. I think you used South Korea as an example about

the business travel and that kind of thing, the subsequent loss of

dollars. You were also asking for a time extension or a waiver,

which would seem to me to be—and I think you mentioned 18

months, which would seem to me to be a security breach.

But do you have any ideas that would really ensure national security and at the same time try to mitigate some of the problems

that you’ve articulated?

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Mr. MARKS. First and foremost, as I said in my testimony and

as I said just a moment ago, the notion of homeland security and

economic security truly are not coequals. But one cannot be overlooked for the other; I think we need to make that clear.

In terms of the timing issues, when it comes to the machinereadable passports, to begin with, these are our trading partners.

These are the 27 countries that we have strong relationships with,

like Spain, the United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland and even

France, the point being we are starting at a destination where we

are dealing, we believe, with low-risk situations.

And so to give them, if you will, their head just a bit to implement the machine-readable passport, because what we don’t know

the result of will at this point be if someone appears at an airline

stand in a country with a machine-readable passport, but they

have the old one, by law the airline won’t be able to board that individual. Some will because you know that is just going to happen,

so they are going to end up in the United States.

Are we going to deport them or will they need then to apply for

a visa here? It becomes a very confusing issue. And there doesn’t

seem to be much clarity between the State Department and Department of Homeland Security in this matter.

We do think, going back—the original date was 2007, and these

27 countries have known that for a long time; following the USA

Patriot Act, following the events of September 11, that was moved

up to this October, and just about everyone is making a pretty good

attempt to get this done. The United Kingdom and Japan are just

about there. Others are getting close, but there are countries—

France, trading partners, that have only begun the process. They

are just not there, but we think even just given a little bit of a window, they can succeed.

On the other issue of the personal interviews, once again, the PR

marketing spin aside, I understand the need for and have no problem with it. We just have to be able to put the resources behind

it so it doesn’t become a black eye on our country, so it isn’t an unimaginable situation with lines going around blocks, people having

to take trips waiting 2 days, pay for one trip to take the ultimate

trip. At that stage of the game, I just think we will find ourselves

in a terrible situation from a competitive standpoint having lost

market share, as I indicated, over the past decade of some 37 percent.

And I will tell you in my home city of San Francisco, where I

spend the vast majority of my life, we have been hit even harder

than that. And the reason for it is that we are a major gateway

city. And if you would have talked to New York, San Francisco, Los

Angeles, Miami, Boston, talk to some of our major gateways, I

think they will sing similar tunes.

Mr. PETTLER. Excuse me, Congressman. If I may add something

to that, to the issue of unintended consequences, I think one thing

we haven’t talked about here is that other countries are looking at

what we do. And there is certainly the risk that if we take too aggressive an approach in these situations, we may see other countries reciprocating in kind, against U.S. individuals who are seeking visas to enter those destinations, and it could have a collateral

damage effect in that regard.

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Getting back to your comment about licenses, I was referring

more to the export control licenses which are licenses that the U.S.

Government, in many cases, if applicable, require that companies

obtain prior to release of certain sensitive technologies to foreign

nationals. And that process is collateral with the visa issuing process. There is a screen that takes place as part of that.

Just overall and just addressing the overall problem and leaving

machine-readable passports aside, I agree with the other speakers

that it is primarily a resource issue when it comes to the concern

about the interview situation. If we can throw enough resources

there, we can put some dent into those timeframes.

I think, no matter what we do, we are going to see delays and

have a universal mandatory interview requirement. I also think

the process is extremely important. If you look at the report that

came out from the GAO, that talked about watch lists and the need

for better coordination between agencies and these various watch

lists, what we find is, nine different agencies of the Federal Government have 12 different watch lists. They have been developed

independent of one another based upon criteria and mission statements of those agencies. There is a need to coordinate those better.

I think in the end result, we will see a point down the line where

there’s going to be at the terminal, where the consular officer sits,

the ability for that consular officer to go in and run the clearance

on-line in real-time on these name-check issues.

I think the issues of the technology reviews, which require more

in-depth technical analysis, that cannot be done by a consular officer. That has to be referred back to the appropriate agencies—Department of Commerce, one of those—for more intensive review.

But that process needs to be refined.

I can envision a time, if we really get on it and we deploy our

technology, where we can have a situation that even with an interview being mandatory, we can turn this around in a much more

acceptable period of time. We are not anywhere near there now. We

are not utilizing the right tools nor do we have the necessary coordination to see that on the immediate horizon.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Platts, any questions?

Let me thank our witnesses for appearing today, and I want to

thank the staff who worked on this hearing and Foreign Service

Officers Landon Taylor and Nick Fetchko who provided assistance

to the staff who traveled to Latvia and Germany for this hearing.

I want to add that the record will be kept open for 2 weeks to

allow witnesses to include other information in the record if something occurs to you that would be very helpful to us. We are going

to continue to monitor this. It is very, very important from a lot

of different perspectives; and we will stay on top of it with your assistance.

Thank you very much and the hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Christopher Shays, Hon. Elijah

E. Cummings, and additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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