Border Security: Stronger Actions Needed to Assess and Mitigate Risks of the Visa Waiver Program
Released: 2006-09-05T00:00:00

Letter

Background

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 created the Visa Waiver Program as a pilot program. It was initially envisioned as an immigration control and economic promotion program, according to State. Participating countries were selected because their citizens had a demonstrated pattern of compliance with U.S. immigration laws, and the governments of these countries granted reciprocal visa-free travel to U.S. citizens. In 2000, the program became permanent under the Visa Waiver Permanent Program Act. In 2002, we reported on the legislative requirements to which countries must adhere before they are eligible for inclusion in the Visa Waiver Program. In general, these are the requirements: A low nonimmigrant visa refusal rate. To qualify for visa waiver status, a country must maintain a refusal rate of less than 3 percent for its citizens who apply for business and tourism visas.

A machine-readable passport program. The country must certify that it issues machine-readable passports to its citizens. As of June 26, 2005, all travelers are required to have a machine-readable passport to enter the United States under this program.

Reciprocity. The country must offer visa-free travel for U.S. citizens.

Figure 1 shows the number of foreign nationals admitted to the United States under the program in recent years (see app. III for more detailed admissions statistics). Persons entering the United States under the Visa Waiver Program must have a valid passport issued by the participating country and be a national be seeking entry for 90 days or less as a temporary visitor for business or have been determined by CBP at the U.S. port of entry to represent no threat to the welfare, health, safety, or security of the United States; have complied with conditions of any previous admission under the program (for example, individuals must have stayed in the United States for 90 days or less during prior visa waiver visits); if entering by air or sea, possess a round-trip transportation ticket issued by a carrier that has signed an agreement with the U.S. government to participate in the program, and must have arrived in the United States aboard such a carrier; and if entering by land, have proof of financial solvency and a domicile abroad to which they intend to return.

Following the events of September 11, 2001, Congress passed additional laws to strengthen border security policies and procedures, and DHS and State instituted other policy changes that have affected a country’s qualifications for participating in the Visa Waiver Program. For example, all passports issued after October 26, 2005, must contain a digital photograph printed in the document; passports issued to visa waiver travelers after October 26, 2006, must be electronic (e-passports). E- passports aim to enhance border security by making it more difficult to misuse the passport to gain entry into the United States. Travelers with passports issued after the deadline that do not meet these requirements must obtain a visa from a U.S. embassy or consulate overseas before departing for the United States. In addition, the May 2002 Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act required that participating countries certify that the theft of their blank passports is reported to the U.S. government in a timely manner. Moreover, the act increased the frequency—from once every 5 years to once every 2 years—of mandated assessments of the effect of each country’s continued participation in the Visa Waiver Program on U.S. security, law enforcement, and immigration interests.

Visa Waiver Program Has Benefits and Risks

The Visa Waiver Program has many benefits, including facilitating international travel for millions of foreign citizens seeking to visit the United States each year, creating substantial economic benefits to the United States, and allowing State to allocate resources to visa-issuing posts in countries with higher-risk applicant pools. However, there are inherent security and law enforcement risks in the program that pose challenges to the United States.

Visa Waiver Program Facilitates Travel to the United States

The Visa Waiver Program was created to facilitate international travel without jeopardizing the welfare or security of the United States, according to the program’s legislative history. In fact, visa waiver travelers have represented about one-half of all nonimmigrant admissions to the United States in recent years, as demonstrated by figure 2 below. According to economic and commercial officers at several of the U.S. embassies we visited, visa-free travel to the United States boosts international business travel and tourism, as well as airline revenues, and creates substantial economic benefits to the United States. In its report accompanying the 2000 bill to make the program permanent, the House Committee on the Judiciary acknowledged the program’s importance to the U.S. travel and tourism industry, and the benefit it provides to American citizens by allowing reciprocal visa-free travel to visa waiver countries. As we reported in 2002, any decision to eliminate the program could discourage some business and tourism in the United States. In addition, visa waiver countries could begin requiring visas for U.S. citizens traveling to the 27 participating countries for temporary business or tourism purposes, which would impose a burden of additional cost and time on U.S. travelers to these countries.

Moreover, the program allows State to allocate its resources to visa- issuing posts in countries with higher-risk applicant pools. In 2002, we reported that eliminating the program would increase State’s resource requirements. Specifically, if the program were eliminated, we estimated that State’s initial costs at that time to process the additional workload would likely range between $739 million and $1.28 billion and that annual recurring costs would likely range between $522 million and $810 million. For example, millions of visa waiver travelers who have benefited from visa-free travel would need to obtain a visa to travel to the United States if the program did not exist. Furthermore, we reported that U.S. officials, including those from State as well as from some law enforcement agencies, said that eliminating the Visa Waiver Program could have negative implications for U.S. relations with governments of participating countries and could impair their cooperation in efforts to combat terrorism.

Visa Waiver Program Can Pose Risks to U.S. Security, Law Enforcement, and Immigration Interests

The Visa Waiver Program can pose risks to U.S. security, law enforcement, and immigration interests because some foreign citizens may exploit the program to enter the United States. In particular, visa waiver travelers are not subject to the same degree of screening as those travelers who must first obtain a visa before arriving in the United States. Furthermore, lost and stolen passports from visa waiver countries could be used by terrorists, criminals, and immigration law violators to gain entry into the United States.

Visa Waiver Travelers and Visa Applicants Face Different Levels of Screening

Since September 11, 2001, the visa issuance process has taken on greater significance as an antiterrorism tool, as we have previously reported. Those travelers who must apply for visas before traveling to the United States receive two levels of screening before entering the country (see fig. 3). However, visa waiver travelers are first screened in person by a CBP inspector once they arrive at the U.S. port of entry, perhaps after having already boarded an international flight bound for the United States with a fraudulent travel document. For visa waiver travelers, CBP primary inspectors observe the applicant, examine his or her passport, collect the applicant’s fingerprints as part of the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program (US-VISIT), and check his or her name against automated databases and watch lists, which contain information regarding the admissibility of aliens, including known terrorists, criminals, and immigration law violators. However, according to the DHS OIG, primary border inspectors are disadvantaged when screening Visa Waiver Program travelers because they may not know the alien’s language or local fraud trends in the alien’s home country, nor have the time to conduct an extensive interview. In contrast, non-visa-waiver travelers, who must obtain a visa from a U.S. embassy or consulate, undergo an interview by consular officials overseas, who conduct a rigorous screening process when deciding to approve or deny a visa. As we have previously reported, State has taken a number of actions since 2002 to strengthen the visa issuance process as a border security tool. Moreover, consular officers have more time to interview applicants and examine the authenticity of their passports, and may also speak the visa applicant’s native language, according to consular officials. Inadmissible travelers who need visas to enter the United States may attempt to acquire a passport from a Visa Waiver Program country to avoid the visa screening process.

Lost and Stolen Passports from Visa Waiver Program Countries Are Highly Valued

One of the Visa Waiver Program Oversight Unit’s primary concerns is the potential exploitation by terrorists, immigration law violators, and other criminals of a visa waiver country’s lost or stolen passports. DHS intelligence analysts, law enforcement officials, and forensic document experts all acknowledge that misuse of lost and stolen passports is the greatest security problem posed by the Visa Waiver Program. Lost and stolen passports from visa waiver countries are highly prized travel documents, according to the Secretary General of Interpol. Moreover, Visa Waiver Program countries that do not consistently report the losses or thefts of their citizens’ passports, or of blank passports, put the United States at greater risk of allowing inadmissible travelers to enter the country.

Fraudulent passports from Visa Waiver Program countries have been used illegally by travelers seeking to disguise their true identities or nationalities when attempting to enter the United States. For example, from January through June 2005, DHS reported that it confiscated, at U.S. ports of entry, 298 fraudulent or altered passports issued by Visa Waiver Program countries that travelers were attempting to use for admission into the United States (see table 1). Two more recent cases demonstrate continued attempts to enter the United States with fraudulent passports issued by visa waiver countries: In December 2005, a Pakistani citizen attempted to enter the United States under the program with a counterfeit United Kingdom passport that she had purchased. During secondary inspection, the CBP officer detected flaws in the passport.

In March 2006, an Albanian citizen attempted to enter the United States using a Belgian passport that he had purchased. The traveler confessed to this upon questioning by CBP officers during secondary inspection.

In 2004, the DHS OIG reported that aliens applying for admission to the United States using lost or stolen passports have little reason to fear being caught. DHS’s OIG reported that a lack of training hampered border inspectors’ ability to detect passport fraud among Visa Waiver Program travelers, and recommended that CBP inspectors receive additional training in fraudulent document detection. At that time, the 12-week training course for new inspectors at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center devoted 1 day to passport fraud, according to the OIG. Currently, CBP dedicates 16 hours out of the 16-week basic training program to fraudulent document detection training for new border inspectors, and provides additional courses for inspectors throughout their assignments at ports of entry. Nevertheless, training officials said that fraudulent and counterfeit passports are extremely difficult to detect, even for the most experienced border inspectors—which makes it imperative that lost and stolen passports are reported on a timely basis.

Although DHS has intercepted some travelers with fraudulent passports at U.S. ports of entry, DHS officials acknowledged that an undetermined number of inadmissible aliens may have entered the United States using a lost or stolen passport from a visa waiver country. According to State, these aliens may have been inadmissible because they were immigration law violators, criminals, or terrorists. Following are several examples: In July 2005, two aliens successfully entered the United States using lost or stolen Austrian passports. DHS was not notified that these passports had been lost or stolen prior to this date; the aliens were admitted, and there is no record of their departure, according to CBP. In October 2005, CBP referred this case to DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement for further action.

In June 2005, CBP inspectors admitted into the United States two aliens using Italian passports that were from a batch of stolen passports. CBP was notified that this batch was stolen; however, the aliens altered the passport numbers to avoid detection by CBP officers. DHS has no record that these individuals departed the United States.

Also in June 2005, three aliens traveling together—all using fraudulent Italian passports—were interviewed at primary inspection. CBP referred one alien, an Albanian citizen, to secondary inspection because she was reluctant to answer the inspector’s questions. In secondary inspection, CBP determined that her passport had been altered. CBP admitted the other two aliens, but subsequently determined that their passports were part of the batch of stolen Italian passports cited in the previous example.

Process for Assessing Program Risks Has Weaknesses

In July 2004, DHS created the Visa Waiver Program Oversight Unit within OIE to monitor the Visa Waiver Program. Its mission is to oversee Visa Waiver Program activities and monitor countries’ adherence to the program’s statutory requirements, ensuring that the United States is protected from those who wish to do it harm or violate its laws, including immigration laws. In 2004, DHS reviewed the law enforcement and security risks posed by the continued participation of 25 of the 27 countries in the program. However, we identified problems with the country review process by which DHS assesses these risks. For example, DHS did not involve key interagency stakeholders in certain portions of the review process, and did not establish transparent protocols for the country assessments—including internal milestones or deadlines for completing the final country assessments, the goals of the site visits, and an explanation of the clearance process. Furthermore, OIE is unable to effectively monitor the immigration, law enforcement, and security risks posed by visa waiver countries on a continuing basis because of insufficient resources.

Initial Steps Taken to Assess Risk of Visa Waiver Program

In April 2004, the DHS OIG identified significant areas where DHS needed to strengthen and improve its management of the Visa Waiver Program. For example, the OIG found that it was unclear who was managing the program following the dissolution of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In addition, the OIG found that a lack of funding, trained personnel, and other issues left DHS unable to comply with the mandated biennial country assessments. In response to these findings, DHS established OIE’s Visa Waiver Program Oversight Unit in July 2004, and named a director to manage the office. Since its establishment, DHS, and particularly OIE, has made strides to address concerns raised by the 2004 OIG review. Specifically, DHS has: conducted site visits in all 27 participating countries; completed comprehensive assessments of 25 participating countries, examining the effect of continued participation in the Visa Waiver Program on U.S. security and law enforcement interests, including the enforcement of immigration laws; identified risks in some of the countries and brought the concerns to the attention of host-country governments in five visa waiver countries; submitted a six-page report to Congress in November 2005 that summarized the findings from the 2004 assessments; and initiated assessments for the remaining two countries in August and September 2005.

In addition, in September 2005, DHS and State organized a technical conference in Washington, D.C., with representatives from Visa Waiver Program countries, to discuss the passport requirements for visa waiver travelers, and the October 2005 and 2006 deadlines for digital photographs and e-passports, respectively. Together, these actions demonstrate significant improvements since the April 2004 OIG report.

DHS Lacks a Clearly- Defined, Consistent, and Timely Process to Assess Risks of Visa Waiver Program

Despite these steps to strengthen and improve the management of the program, we identified several problems with the process DHS uses to assess the risks posed by each of the visa waiver countries’ continued participation in the program—namely the mandated biennial country assessment process. For the 2004 assessments, we found the following: some key stakeholders were excluded from the decision-making process; the reviews lacked clear criteria to make key judgments; there was inconsistent preparation for the in-country site visits for the reviews; and DHS and its interagency partners neither completed the 25 country assessments nor issued the summary report to Congress in a timely manner.

OIE has acknowledged such weaknesses and has begun to make adjustments; however, concerns remain.

Review Process Did Not Involve Key Stakeholders

We found that the review process lacked clear protocols, as key stakeholders were left out of the report development process. Specifically, after conducting the site visits and contributing to the reports on the site visits, DHS and the interagency working group did not seek input from all site visit team members while drafting and clearing the final country assessments and subsequent report to Congress. For example, DHS’s forensic document analysts, who participated in the site visits in 2004, told us that they did not see, clear, or comment on the draft country assessments, despite repeated attempts to obtain copies of them. Thus, these analysts questioned the integrity of the process because they had not seen how their analyses were incorporated into the final assessments. Additionally, State’s headquarters officers who cover diplomatic relations in Visa Waiver Program countries, as well as embassy officials in all of the posts we visited, stated that they were not asked to review or provide comments on the draft assessments, nor had they seen the final assessments. CBP officials also stated that they repeatedly requested copies of the country assessments and subsequent report to Congress, but did not receive them. According to State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, DHS did not seek feedback from U.S. embassies and State’s regional bureaus on the draft site visit or individual country assessments. Because these assessments contained classified information, OIE officials told us that they were not broadly distributed in draft or final form. Nevertheless, without this information, key stakeholders could not be effective advocates for U.S. concerns.

Review Process Lacked Clear Criteria to Make Key Judgments

We found that DHS did not have clear criteria when assessing each country’s participation in the program to determine at what point security concerns would trigger discussions with foreign governments about these concerns and an attempt to resolve them. As previously mentioned, the DHS-led interagency working group identified five countries from its 2004 assessment with significant security concerns, and DHS, in coordination with State, discussed these concerns with government officials. Furthermore, U.S. embassies issued a formal diplomatic demarche to the five governments regarding the concerns in March 2005. However, while the working group also had concerns with a sixth country, it decided not to issue a demarche to this government. According to State, the working group determined that the concerns identified in this country were not directly related to the Visa Waiver Program and the country’s participation in the program. However, OIE officials and other working group members stated that they did not use any standard criteria in making this determination. State officials agreed that qualitative and/or quantitative criteria would be useful when making these determinations, although DHS stated that the criteria should be flexible. During our visit to the U.S. embassy in the sixth country, which was not issued a demarche, U.S. officials told us they were unaware that the working group had discussed security concerns in the context of the country assessment. While embassy officials had already been addressing these issues as part of their mission, they said that they would have likely seen greater progress made in discussions with foreign government officials if all parties had known that there was a potential link between these security concerns and visa waiver requirements.

Inconsistent Preparation for Site Visits

The site visits associated with each country review were not always well- prepared and lacked a consistent approach, according to the site visit team members. Several team members representing different agencies stated that they did not receive adequate information and guidance prior to conducting the site visits and, thus, were not well-prepared to conduct the visits. DHS did not brief or train the site visit team members prior to conducting the 2004 reviews, and many said that the goals of the in- country visits were not clear. One team member stated that the site visits were largely “fact-finding trips,” as opposed to a targeted analysis of law enforcement and security concerns. Moreover, prior to conducting the site visits, DHS sent each country a background questionnaire; however, OIE and team members stated that some countries did not provide responses to the questionnaire prior to the site visit, which would have been useful for preparation. Furthermore, senior U.S. officials in each of the embassies we visited stated that the goals and priorities of the 2004 DHS-led site visit teams were not clear to them. Consular officials at half of the posts we visited also said that the site visit teams arrived on short notice and did not give them adequate time to prepare. As a result, the teams may not have made the most efficient use of their time in-country, and may not have gathered their information on a consistent basis.

Reporting Untimely

DHS did not issue, in a timely manner, the summary report to Congress that generally described the overall findings from the 25 country assessments. Although DHS is mandated to conduct the country assessments every 2 years, Congress did not establish a deadline by which the assessments must be completed or the summary report issued. OIE, State, and Justice officials acknowledged that the assessments took too long to complete. The interagency teams conducted site visits as part of the country assessments from May through September 2004, and transmitted the final summary report to Congress more than 1 year later, in November 2005. The report to Congress was a six-page summary that did not include detailed descriptions of the law enforcement and security risks identified during the review process, which were discussed at length in the individual country assessments. According to interagency working group members, DHS did not establish internal milestones or deadlines for completing the final country assessments. OIE officials attributed the lengthiness of the assessment process to the multiple rounds of clearances for each of the 25 assessments and the summary report.

While the country assessments were awaiting clearance, there were missed opportunities to capture more recent developments, and the final assessments contained dated information or were incomplete. For example, in May 2005, a post in one visa waiver country was notified there had been a large-scale, high-profile theft of blank passports. While the U.S. government was aware of this theft, this information was not captured in that country’s assessment as it was being cleared. Moreover, the teams collecting information about the visa waiver countries’ risks in 2004 used, in some cases, information from 2 years prior; by the time the summary report was issued in November 2005, some of the data was over 3 years old. As a result of this lengthy process, the final report presented to Congress did not necessarily reflect the current law enforcement and security risks posed by each country, or the positive steps that countries had made to address these risks (see fig. 4).

OIE officials acknowledged weaknesses in the 2004 reviews, and made some adjustments for the 2005 country assessments for Italy and Portugal, the two remaining countries. For the 2005 reviews, DHS conducted a 1-day training seminar to explain the objectives of the visit and share information about the countries to the site visit teams, including findings from prior country assessments. Additionally, the team members met prior to conducting the site visits, and reconvened upon returning to Washington, D.C., to ensure consensus on their report on the site visit. However, the 2005 country review process still lacked consistency and transparency. In particular, DHS has not finalized its operating procedures for site visits. The site visit teams traveled to the remaining two countries in August and September 2005; however, as of June 2006, DHS had neither updated the interagency working group team members on the status of the reviews of Italy and Portugal, nor provided them with a timeline for proceeding with the review. Furthermore, stakeholders continued to express concern about DHS’s lack of communication about the process and the findings, and no changes have been made to the review process that would make the final report to Congress timely. Therefore, there are no assurances that the next biennial assessment round will proceed more quickly than the previous round.

DHS Cannot Effectively Monitor Ongoing Concerns in Visa Waiver Countries

DHS cannot effectively monitor the law enforcement and security risks posed by visa waiver countries on a consistent, ongoing basis because it has not provided OIE with adequate staffing and resources. Furthermore, we found weaknesses in communication between DHS and overseas posts and other agencies.

Lack of Staffing and Funding Impedes Ability to Assess Risks

OIE is limited in its ability to achieve its mission because of insufficient staffing and funding. The office has numerous responsibilities, including conducting the mandated biennial country reviews; monitoring law enforcement, security, and immigration concerns in visa waiver countries on an ongoing basis; working with countries seeking to become members of the Visa Waiver briefing foreign government representatives from participating visa waiver countries, as well as those countries that are seeking admission into the program, on issues related to program membership.

In 2004, the DHS OIG found that OIE’s lack of resources directly undercut its ability to assess a security problem inherent in the program—lost and stolen passports. The office received funding to conduct the country reviews in 2004 and 2005; however, OIE officials indicated that a lack of funding and full-time staff has made it extremely difficult to conduct additional overseas fieldwork, as well as track ongoing issues of concern in the 27 visa waiver countries—a key limitation in DHS’s ability to assess and mitigate the program’s risks. According to OIE officials, the unit developed a strategic plan to monitor the program, but has been unable to implement its plan with its current staffing. As of June 2006, the office was staffed with two full-time employees, as well as one temporary employee from another DHS component. Moreover, OIE does not have a separate budget, but must request funds (for example, to conduct travel related to the Visa Waiver Program) from the Office of Policy Development. In addition, program officials stated that they have paid for their own office supplies using their personal savings due to funding constraints. Without adequate resources, OIE is unable to monitor and assess participating countries’ compliance with the Visa Waiver Program’s statutory requirements.

Gaps in DHS’s Communications with its Overseas Posts and Other Agencies

DHS has not clearly communicated its mission to stakeholders at overseas posts, nor identified points of contact within U.S. embassies, so it can communicate directly with field officials positioned to monitor countries’ compliance with Visa Waiver Program requirements and report on current events and issues of potential concern. In particular, within DHS’s various components, we found that OIE is largely an unknown entity and, therefore, is unable to leverage the expertise of DHS officials overseas. Specifically, only 3 of the 15 DHS field officials with whom we spoke in the six visa waiver countries we visited were aware of the Visa Waiver Program Oversight Unit and its mission. A senior DHS representative at one post showed us that her organizational directory did not contain contact information for OIE. In addition, an official from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of International Affairs acknowledged that DHS needs a better communication plan for the Visa Waiver Program. He stated that DHS had not prioritized the workload for all its officials overseas, including their role in overseeing the Visa Waiver Program; he also told us that OIE had not yet articulated what information it needed, designated a mechanism to share that information, or gained agency-wide acceptance of procedures for monitoring the compliance of visa waiver countries. In fact, a senior DHS official in Washington, D.C., told us that he may find out about developments—either routine or emergent—in visa waiver countries by “happenstance.” Without an outreach strategy, DHS is not able to leverage its existing resources at U.S. embassies in all visa waiver countries.

Furthermore, key stakeholders, who are in a position to influence and monitor visa waiver countries’ compliance with the program’s requirements, were not informed of the major findings of the country assessments. In fact, at the time of our visits, ambassadors or deputy chiefs of mission in each of the six posts told us that they were not fully aware of the extent to which the country assessments discussed law enforcement and security concerns posed by the continued participation of the country in the program. The Deputy Chief of Mission at one post stated that without the appropriate information, such as was contained in the assessments, embassy officials could not be effective agents for the U.S. government with regard to these issues. Bureau of Consular Affairs officials in Washington, D.C., agreed that any concerns identified in the assessments should be brought to the attention of the embassy, so that the posts can address the concerns accordingly. Due to the lack of outreach and clear communication about its mission, OIE is limited in its ability to monitor the day-to-day law enforcement and security concerns posed by the Visa Waiver Program, and the U.S. government is limited in its ability to influence visa waiver countries’ progress in meeting requirements.

We also found gaps in interagency communication. According to OIE, State plays a significant role in conveying information relevant to the Visa Waiver Program to U.S. embassy officials and their host government counterparts. Therefore, it is important that State and DHS have clear lines of communication. For example, in October 2005, one government expressed willingness to share data on lost and stolen issued passports with the United States, and asked for technical specifications on how to do so. However, at the time of our February 2006 visit, the post in that country had not received direction from headquarters on how this passport information should be shared. Moreover, OIE officials told us that they were unaware that this country was willing to share this data until we brought it to their attention in early March 2006. As a result, the United States missed opportunities to potentially deter the fraudulent use of passports from this country, which in fact has the highest rate of misuse among all visa waiver countries, according to DHS. Additionally, a senior consular official in another participating country expressed frustration that DHS had not fully explained to embassy officials why visa waiver countries needed to report lost and stolen passport information directly to the United States and Interpol, which maintains a global database of lost and stolen travel documents. Several other senior consular officials also expressed the need for more information about OIE’s mission and goals, as well as the desired role for overseas posts.

DHS Faces Difficulties in Mitigating Program Risks

DHS has taken some actions to mitigate the risks of the Visa Waiver Program, such as terminating the use of the German temporary passport for travel under the program. Since 2002, the law has required the timely reporting of passport thefts for continued participating in the Visa Waiver Program, but DHS has not established and communicated time frames and operating procedures to participating countries. In addition, DHS has sought to expand this requirement to include the reporting of data, to the United States and Interpol, on lost and stolen issued passports; however, participating countries are resisting these requirements, and DHS has not yet issued guidance on what information must be shared, with whom, and within what time frame. Furthermore, U.S. border inspectors are unable to automatically access Interpol’s data on reported lost and stolen passports, which makes it more difficult to detect reported lost or stolen passports at U.S. ports of entry.

DHS Has Taken Some Actions to Mitigate Risks of the Visa Waiver Program

As previously mentioned, during the 2004 assessment process, the working group identified security concerns in several participating countries, and DHS took actions to mitigate some of these risks. For example, DHS determined that several thousand blank German temporary passports had been lost or stolen, and that Germany had not reported some of this information to the United States. In March 2005, at the working group’s request, the U.S. embassy in Berlin conveyed these concerns to the German government to seek a solution. In March 2006, DHS determined that sufficient progress had not been made to address the concern over German temporary passports, and, as of May 1, 2006, German temporary passport holders are not allowed to travel to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program without a visa.

DHS has also made some progress in enforcing new passport security measures. For example, DHS has enforced an October 26, 2005, deadline requiring travelers under the Visa Waiver Program to have digital photographs in their passports. Specifically, Italian and French citizens with noncompliant passports issued after October 26, 2005, must first obtain a visa before traveling to the United States because these countries did not meet the deadline. Furthermore, as previously mentioned, by October 26, 2006, visa waiver travelers must have e-passports for travel under the program. E-passports aim to enhance the security of travel documents, making it more difficult for imposters or inadmissible aliens to misuse the passport to gain entry into the United States. DHS and State officials told us that nearly all 27 participating countries report that they are on schedule to meet this deadline. According to US-VISIT, DHS will deploy machines to read the e-passports at 33 airports by the October 2006 deadline, covering about 98 percent of all visa waiver travelers. While US- VISIT intends to deploy e-passport readers to all ports of entry in the future, it has not articulated clear timeframes to do so. Therefore, until this is achieved, it will not be possible for DHS to read the information on the chips embedded in the passports for the remaining ports of entry.

DHS Lacks Standard Procedures for Obtaining Stolen Blank Passport Data

A key risk in the Visa Waiver Program is stolen blank passports from visa waiver countries, because detecting these passports at U.S. ports of entry is extremely difficult, according to DHS. Some thefts of blank passports have not been reported to the United States until years after the fact, according to DHS intelligence reports. For example, in 2004, a visa waiver country reported the theft of nearly 300 stolen blank passports to the United States—more than 9 years after the theft occurred. In addition, in 2004, a visa waiver country reported the theft of 270 blank passports more than 8 months after the theft occurred. The 2002 Enhanced Security and Visa Entry Reform Act provides that the Secretary of Homeland Security must terminate a country from the Visa Waiver Program if he and the Secretary of State jointly determine that the country is not reporting the theft of its blank passports to the United States on a timely basis. DHS and State have chosen not to terminate from the program countries that have failed to report these incidents.

DHS officials told us that the inherent political, economic, and diplomatic implications associated with removing a country from the Visa Waiver Program make it difficult to enforce the statutory requirement in the broadest terms. Moreover, DHS has not established time frames or operating procedures to enforce this requirement. In April 2004, the DHS OIG recommended that the then-Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security, in coordination with State, develop standard operating procedures for the routine and proactive collection of stolen passport information from host governments for dissemination to U.S. agencies. While the statute requires visa waiver countries to certify that they report information on the theft of their blank passports to the United States on a timely basis, as of June 2006, DHS has not defined what constitutes “timely.” Moreover, the United States lacks a centralized mechanism for foreign governments to report all stolen passports. In particular, DHS has not defined to whom in the U.S. government participating countries should report this information.

Some Participating Visa Waiver Program Countries Are Resisting Additional Reporting to United States and Interpol

In addition to blank passports, lost or stolen issued passports also pose a risk because they can be altered. In June 2005, DHS issued guidance to participating Visa Waiver Program countries requiring that they certify their intent to report lost and stolen passport data on issued passports by August 2005. However, DHS has not yet issued guidance on what information must be shared, with whom, and within what time frame. Some visa waiver countries have not yet agreed to provide this information to the United States, due in part to concerns over the privacy of their citizens’ biographical information. In addition, several consular officials expressed confusion about the current and impending requirements about sharing this data, and felt they were unable to adequately explain the requirements to their foreign counterparts.

In June 2005, the U.S. government also announced its intention to require visa waiver countries to certify their intent to report information on both lost and stolen blank and issued passports to Interpol. In 2002, Interpol developed a database of lost and stolen travel documents to which its member countries may contribute on a voluntary basis. The United States has endorsed Interpol’s database, and, since May 2004, State has been contributing U.S. data from lost and stolen blank passports to it. In 2005, State reported to Congress that it also instructed all U.S. embassies and consulates to take every opportunity to persuade host governments to share this data with Interpol. While most visa waiver countries use and contribute to Interpol’s database, four do not. Moreover, some countries that do contribute do not do so on a regular basis, according to Interpol officials. Interpol stated that it continues to encourage countries to send this information more systematically. In addition, participating countries have expressed concerns about reporting this information, citing privacy issues; however, Interpol’s database on lost and stolen travel documents does not include the passport bearers’ biographical information, such as name and date of birth. According to the Secretary General of Interpol, in light of the high value associated with passports from visa waiver countries, it is a priority for his agency to encourage these countries to contribute to the database.

Inefficient Access to Interpol’s Database on Lost and Stolen Passports

Though information from Interpol’s database could potentially stop inadmissible travelers from entering the United States, CBP’s border inspectors do not have automatic access to the database at primary inspection at U.S. ports of entry—the first line of defense against those who might exploit the Visa Waiver Program to enter the United States. The inspection process at U.S. ports of entry can include two stages—a primary and secondary inspection. If, during the primary inspection, the inspector suspects that the traveler is inadmissible either because of a fraudulent passport or other reason, the inspector refers the traveler to secondary inspection. At secondary inspection, border inspectors can contact officials at the National Targeting Center, who can query Interpol’s stolen-travel-document database to determine if the traveler is attempting to enter the United States with a passport that had been previously reported lost or stolen, but is not yet on CBP’s watch list (see fig. 5). However, Interpol’s data on lost and stolen travel documents is not automatically accessible to border inspectors at primary inspection—one reason why it is not currently an effective border screening tool, according to DHS, State, and Justice officials. According to the Secretary General of Interpol, until DHS can automatically query Interpol’s data, the United States will not have an effective screening tool for checking passports.

According to Interpol officials, the United States is working actively with Interpol on a potential pilot project that would allow for an automatic query of aliens’ passport data against Interpol’s database at primary inspection at U.S. ports of entry. However, DHS has not yet finalized a plan to do so. In December 2005, Interpol began a similar program at all border stations in Switzerland. Through this program, Swiss border agents query Interpol’s database as soon as travelers appear at a border station. According to the Secretary General of Interpol, in a 2-month period, Switzerland encountered 282 potential instances of travelers attempting to enter the country with a previously reported lost or stolen passport. In addition, during this time frame, Swiss border agents queried Interpol’s database more than all other member countries combined because it was the only country accessing the database automatically.

In commenting on a draft of this report, Justice’s Interpol-U.S. National Central Bureau stated that from April through June 2006, Justice, CBP’s National Targeting Center, and Interpol compared records from certain passengers arriving in the United States against Interpol’s lost and stolen travel document database. According to the National Central Bureau, the test’s objectives were to simulate an automatic query of passenger records against Interpol’s database and analyze discrepancies between that database and U.S. watch lists. The National Central Bureau stated that, by early August 2006, it and the National Targeting Center will finalize a report on this test to help facilitate a pilot program for real-time, systematic queries of passenger records against Interpol’s data at U.S. ports of entry.

Conclusions

The Visa Waiver Program aims to facilitate international travel for millions of people each year and promote the effective use of government resources. Effective oversight of the program entails balancing these benefits against the program’s potential risks. To find this balance, the U.S. government needs to fully identify the vulnerabilities posed by visa waiver travelers, and be in a position to mitigate them. However, we found weaknesses in the process by which the U.S. government assesses these risks, and DHS’s Visa Waiver Program Oversight Unit is not able to manage the program with its current resource levels. Moreover, DHS has not communicated clear reporting requirements for lost and stolen passports—a key risk—nor can it automatically access all stolen passport information when it is most needed—namely, at the primary inspection point at U.S. points of entry. It is imperative that DHS commit to strengthen its ability to promptly identify and mitigate risks to ensure that the Visa Waiver Program does not jeopardize U.S. security interests.

Recommendations

To improve the U.S. government’s process for assessing risks in the Visa Waiver Program, we recommend that the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with State and other appropriate agencies, take the following five actions: Provide additional resources to strengthen OIE’s visa waiver monitoring unit.

Finalize clear, consistent, and transparent protocols for the biennial country assessments and provide these protocols to stakeholders at relevant agencies at headquarters and overseas. These protocols should provide timelines for the entire assessment process, including the role of a site visit, an explanation of the clearance process, and deadlines for completion.

Create real-time monitoring arrangements, including the identification of visa-waiver points of contact at U.S. embassies, for all 27 participating countries; and establish protocols, in coordination with appropriate headquarters offices, for direct communication between points of contact at overseas posts and OIE’s Visa Waiver Program Oversight Unit.

Require periodic updates from points of contact at posts in countries where there are law enforcement or security concerns relevant to the Visa Waiver Program.

Provide complete copies of the most recent country assessments to relevant stakeholders in headquarters and overseas posts.

To improve the U.S. government’s process for mitigating the risks in the Visa Waiver Program, we recommend that the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with State and other appropriate agencies, take the following three actions: Require that all visa waiver countries provide the United States and Interpol with non-biographical data from lost or stolen issued passports, as well as from blank passports.

Develop and communicate clear standard operating procedures for the reporting of lost and stolen blank and issued passport data, including a definition of timely reporting and to whom in the U.S. government countries should report.

Develop and implement a plan to make Interpol’s stolen travel document database automatically available during primary inspection at U.S. ports of entry.

Matter for Congressional Consideration

The May 2002 Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act mandated DHS to conduct country assessments of the effect on U.S. law enforcement and security interests of each country’s continued participation in the Visa Waiver Program at least every 2 years. Given the lengthy time it took for DHS to issue the November 2005 summary report to Congress, and to ensure future reports contain timely information when issued, Congress should consider establishing a biennial deadline by which DHS must complete the country assessments and report to Congress.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

DHS, State, and Interpol provided written comments on a draft of this report (see apps. IV, V, and VI). DHS, State, Interpol, and Justice’s Interpol- U.S. National Central Bureau provided technical comments, which we incorporated into the report, as appropriate.

DHS either agreed with, or stated that it is considering, all of our recommendations. Regarding our matter for congressional consideration, DHS did not appear to support the establishment of a deadline for the biennial report to Congress. Instead, DHS suggested that Congress should require continuous and ongoing evaluation. With continuous review, DHS stated that it would be able to constantly evaluate U.S. interests and report to Congress on the current 2-year reporting cycle on targeted issues of concern, rather than providing a historical evaluation. We agree that continuous and ongoing evaluation is necessary, and that is why we recommended that DHS create real-time monitoring arrangements and provide additional resources to the Visa Waiver Program Oversight Unit to achieve this goal. Regarding the mandated biennial country assessments, we believe that they can serve a useful purpose if they are completed in a timely fashion. In addition, DHS provided information on actions that it has taken to improve the management of the biennial country assessment process.

State agreed that efforts by U.S. embassies and consulates to monitor and assess the Visa Waiver Program would benefit from enhanced communication to and from DHS, and endorsed our recommendation that DHS provide more information to these stakeholders on Visa Waiver Program issues. In addition, State acknowledged the risk of misuse of previously lost or stolen passports, particularly by persons who are not eligible for a visa. With regard to timely reporting on lost and stolen passports, State welcomed our recommendation calling for clear guidelines and reporting mechanisms to achieve this goal.

Interpol provided information about its lost and stolen travel document database and tools that it has developed to allow law enforcement officers to instantly check this database at airports and other border entry points. In addition, Interpol noted that many developing countries lack the resources necessary to implement these tools. Therefore, Interpol urged the United States and other countries to provide funding to facilitate access for all countries to its lost and stolen travel document database. It also provided its views on the risks associated with lost and stolen passports.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the report date. At that time, we will provide copies of this report to the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, as well as the Attorney General and the Secretary General of Interpol. We will also make copies available to others upon request.

In addition, this report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov. If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-4128 or fordj@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix VII.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To describe the benefits of the Visa Waiver Program, we reviewed relevant documentation, including Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports and our 2002 report on the implications of eliminating the program. We also interviewed political, economic, consular, commercial, and law enforcement officials at U.S. embassies overseas to discuss the advantages of the program for U.S. business and tourism. To describe the risks in the Visa Waiver Program, we examined documentation on the screening process at U.S. ports of entry for travelers from Visa Waiver Program countries. In addition, we analyzed data from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on interceptions of fraudulent, lost, or stolen passports from participating countries. We also observed fraudulent document detection training of CBP agents at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and spoke with training officials regarding the difficulty in detecting fraudulent passports. We also interviewed officials from the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Targeting Center, Intelligence and Analysis Directorate, and Forensic Document Laboratory on the risks posed by Visa Waiver Program travelers.

In particular, we analyzed data on the number of nonimmigrants that entered the United States under the Visa Waiver Program from fiscal years 2002 though 2004. While we did not fully assess the reliability of these statistics because we used them for background purposes, we conducted interviews and obtained other corroborating evidence that confirmed the importance of the Visa Waiver Program in terms of the broad numbers of admissions to the United States in recent years.

Regarding DHS’s data on fraudulent passports, DHS reported that these data are limited to those cases in which the fraudulent document from the Visa Waiver Program country was intercepted at a port of entry, and do not include instances when fraudulent passports were used to enter the United States but were not detected. While we could not fully assess the reliability of the data, we found them sufficiently reliable to establish that hundreds of fraudulent documents from a broad range of Visa Waiver Program countries were intercepted in 2005. In addition, the number of documents that DHS reports by country is not necessarily indicative of the extent of the problem in that country, as these data only cover instances when fraudulent documents were intercepted.

To evaluate the U.S. government’s efforts to assess and mitigate these risks, we analyzed the laws governing the program, relevant agency operating procedures, and DHS OIG reports. We also examined 15 of the 25 completed reports assessing the participation of Visa Waiver Program countries. As of June 2006, the remaining 10 assessments were pending classification review by DHS’s Office of International Enforcement. These assessments contained, among other things, detailed analyses of an individual country’s political, social, and economic conditions; security over its passport and national identity documents; immigration and nationality laws, law enforcement policies and practices, and other matters relevant to law enforcement, immigration, and national security; patterns of passport fraud, visa fraud, and visa abuse; assessments of terrorism, by the country’s nationals, within or outside the evaluations of the impact of the country’s participation in the Visa Waiver Program on U.S. national security and law enforcement.

To discuss these assessments and actions taken in response to their findings, we met with officials from several DHS component agencies and offices, the Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs and its Europe and Eurasia Bureau, and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) in Lyon, France. In addition, we met with officials from the Department of Justice’s U.S. National Central Bureau in Washington, D.C., which facilitates international law enforcement cooperation among the United States and Interpol and its other member countries. We also spoke with U.S. Embassy officials in six Visa Waiver Program countries, as well as foreign government officials in three of these countries. During these visits, we observed visa operations and interviewed embassy management, consular staff, and representatives from law enforcement agencies regarding their roles and responsibilities in overseeing the Visa Waiver Program.

We conducted our evaluation from September 2005 through June 2006 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Appendix II: Map of Visa Waiver Program Countries

The Netherlands

Appendix III: Foreign Nationals Admitted under the Visa Waiver Program, Fiscal Years 2002 through 2004

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security

GAO Comments

1. We understand that DHS’s organizational structure changed during the 2004 review process. To avoid confusion regarding the DHS units that had some involvement in this process, we have replaced references to the Office of International Enforcement (OIE) with DHS, as appropriate. 2. Our review focused on the 2004 biennial review process for 25 of the 27 Visa Waiver Program countries. We agree that DHS has taken some steps to improve the 2005 process for Italy and Portugal, whose reviews are still in process, and we discuss these improvements in our report. However, we disagree that DHS has corrected most of the problems associated with the 2004 review process. As we note in our report, as of June 2006, DHS had neither updated the interagency working group team members on the status of the reviews of Italy and Portugal, nor provided them with a timeline for proceeding with the review. Furthermore, stakeholders continued to express concern about DHS’s lack of communication about the process and the findings. Therefore, we recommended that DHS finalize clear, consistent, and transparent protocols for biennial country assessments and provide these protocols to stakeholders at relevant agencies at headquarters and overseas. 3. We did not intend to suggest that the evaluation of U.S. security and law enforcement interests needed to be conducted or finalized during the in-country site visits. Our point is that important events may take place while the country assessments are in the clearance process. We believe that DHS should update the country assessments to reflect these events, such as large scale thefts of blank passports like the May 2005 theft that we noted in our report, to ensure that Congress has a comprehensive analysis of the current law enforcement and security risks posed by each country. 4. We agree that DHS cannot continue to incorporate data indefinitely into the country assessments. However, as we reported, the teams collecting information about the visa waiver countries’ risks in 2004 used, in some cases, information from 2 years prior; by the time the summary report was issued in November 2005, some of the data was more than 3 years old. Indeed, as DHS noted elsewhere, the 2004 country assessments provided a “rearview mirror” and “backward- looking” evaluation. Thus, the assessments may not necessarily have contained the best information available at the time the assessments were finalized. Given the lengthy time it took for DHS to issue the November 2005 summary report to Congress, and to ensure future reports contain timely information when issued, we believe that Congress should consider establishing a biennial deadline by which DHS must complete the country assessments and report to Congress. 5. We agree that continuous and ongoing evaluations of Visa Waiver Program countries are needed and recommended that DHS create real- time monitoring arrangements and provide additional resources to the Visa Waiver Program Oversight Unit to achieve this goal. However, as long as DHS is required to report biennially to Congress, DHS should ensure that future reviews are conducted in a timely fashion. Based on our review of the 2004 country assessment process, the assessments may not necessarily have contained the best information available at the time the assessments were finalized given the lengthy time it took for DHS to finalize its reviews. 6. We agree that it is in the U.S. government’s best interest to engage with countries on global concerns identified during the course of the country assessment process. It is not our intention to inhibit this kind of consultation. Furthermore, we acknowledge that a consultative process may involve tradeoffs between timely reporting and complete information gathering and analysis. Our concern is that key stakeholders in headquarters and at overseas posts, as well as members of the in-country site visit teams, expressed concerns about their roles in the 2004 country assessment process, and stated that they had not received enough detail from DHS about the process and the findings. Thus, we recommended that DHS provide transparent protocols to all stakeholders that provide timelines for the entire assessment process, including the role of a site visit, an explanation of the clearance process, and deadlines for completion. We believe it is important that DHS finalize its standard operating procedures, and share these procedures with relevant stakeholders at headquarters and overseas. As we noted in our report, due to the lack of outreach and clear communication about its mission, OIE is limited in its ability to monitor the day-to-day law enforcement and security concerns posed by the Visa Waiver Program, and the U.S. government is limited in its ability to influence visa waiver countries’ progress in meeting requirements. 7. We strongly agree that classified and sensitive information should be protected. However, we also believe that cleared U.S. officials at overseas posts in Visa Waiver Program countries, including ambassadors and deputy chiefs of mission, have a need to know the extent to which law enforcement and security concerns were identified during the mandated biennial reviews, and should receive copies of the final country assessments. Without the appropriate information, such as was contained in the assessments, embassy officials can not be effective agents for the U.S. government with regard to these issues. We believe that the establishment of a classified sharing system that allows U.S. government agencies to access the country assessments is a positive step.

Appendix V: Comments from the Department of State

Appendix VI: Comments from the International Criminal Police Organization

Appendix VII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

Jess T. Ford, (202) 512-4128 or fordj@gao.gov.

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, John Brummet, Assistant Director; Kathryn H. Bernet, Joseph C. Brown, Joseph Carney, Richard Hung, Jane S. Kim, Mary Moutsos, and Jena Sinkfield made key contributions to this report.