    [House Hearing, 109 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                  COMBATING TERRORISM: VISAS STILL VULNERABLE

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
                      EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL
                                   RELATIONS

                                     of the

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                               GOVERNMENT REFORM

                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               SEPTEMBER 13, 2005

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 109-78

                                   __________

           Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

      Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
                                   index.html
                          http://www.house.gov/reform

                                     ______

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
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                         COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

                         TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
    CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut       HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
    DAN BURTON, Indiana                  TOM LANTOS, California
    ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida         MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
    JOHN M. McHUGH, New York             EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
    JOHN L. MICA, Florida                PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
    GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota             CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
    MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana              ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
    STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio           DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
    TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania    DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
    CHRIS CANNON, Utah                   WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
    JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee       DIANE E. WATSON, California
    CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan          STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
    DARRELL E. ISSA, California          LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
    GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida           C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
    JON C. PORTER, Nevada                BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
    KENNY MARCHANT, Texas                ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
    LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia            Columbia
    PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina               ------
    CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania        BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
    VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina            (Independent)
    ------ ------

                        Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
           David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
                          Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
                           Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
              Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

    Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International
                                   Relations

                    CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
    KENNY MARCHANT, Texas                DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
    DAN BURTON, Indiana                  TOM LANTOS, California
    ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida         BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
    JOHN M. McHUGH, New York             CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
    STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio           CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
    TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania    LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
    JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee       C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
    JON C. PORTER, Nevada                BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
    CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

                                   Ex Officio

    TOM DAVIS, Virginia                  HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
                Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
                    Thomas Costa, Professional Staff Member
                            Robert A. Briggs, Clerk
                 Andrew Su, Minority Professional Staff Member

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page
    Hearing held on September 13, 2005...............................     1
    Statement of:
        Ervin, Clark Kent, director, Homeland Security Initiative,
          Aspen Institute; Dr. James J. Carafano, senior fellow, the
          Heritage Foundation; Susan Ginsburg, former senior counsel,
          National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
          States (the 9/11 Commission); and John Daniel Morris,
          retired Consul General, U.S. Mission to Beijing, China.....    76
            Carafano, Dr. James J....................................    83
            Ervin, Clark Kent........................................    76
            Ginsburg, Susan..........................................    94
            Morris, John Daniel......................................   104
        Ford, Jess T., Director, International Affairs and Trade
          Division; U.S. Government Accountability Office; Ambassador
          John E. Lange, Deputy Inspector General, U.S. Department of
          State; Tony Edson, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for
          Visa Services, Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. Department
          of State; and Elaine Dezenski, Acting Deputy Assistant
          Secretary for Policy, Border and Transportation Security,
          U.S. Department of Homeland Security.......................     3
            Dezenski, Elaine.........................................    44
            Edson, Tony..............................................    36
            Ford, Jess T.............................................     3
            Lange, Ambassador John E.................................    27
    Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
        Carafano, Dr. James J., senior fellow, the Heritage
          Foundation, prepared statement of..........................    85
        Dezenski, Elaine, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for
          Policy, Border and Transportation Security, U.S. Department
          of Homeland Security, prepared statement of................    47
        Edson, Tony, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa
          Services, Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of
          State, prepared statement of...............................    38
        Ervin, Clark Kent, director, Homeland Security Initiative,
          Aspen Institute, prepared statement of.....................    80
        Ford, Jess T., Director, International Affairs and Trade
          Division, prepared statement of............................     6
        Ginsburg, Susan, former senior counsel, National Commission
          on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11
          Commission), prepared statement of.........................    97
        Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from
          the State of Ohio, prepared statement of...................   129
        Lange, Ambassador John E., Deputy Inspector General, U.S.
          Department of State, prepared statement of.................    29
        Morris, John Daniel, retired Consul General, U.S. Mission to
          Beijing, China, prepared statement of......................   106

                  COMBATING TERRORISM: VISAS STILL VULNERABLE

                                  ----------

                          TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2005

                      House of Representatives,
           Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging
                  Threats, and International Relations,
                                Committee on Government Reform,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in
    room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher
    Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
        Present: Representatives Shays and Van Hollen.
        Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and
    counsel; Thomas Costa, professional staff member; Robert A.
    Briggs, clerk; Andrew Su, minority professional staff member;
    and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.
        Mr. Shays. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
    National Security, Emerging Threats, and International
    Relations hearing entitled, ``Combating Terrorism: Visas Still
    Vulnerable,'' is called to order.
        All 19 terrorists responsible for the September 11th
    attacks obtained legitimate visas to enter the United States.
    Many should have been flagged as suspicious somewhere along the
    way, but they were not. Would they be able to get visas today?
    Four years later the answer to that question is still an
    unsettling ``probably not, but maybe.''
        Without question, the visa process has been strengthened as
    a security tool. Without question, the Department of State has
    improved training of consular officers and standardized many
    critical visa adjudication steps from embassy to embassy.
    Technology has been deployed to improve the speed and
    effectiveness of a very labor-intensive system. Fingerprints
    are collected. Identities are verified, and everyone who wants
    to visit the United States must be interviewed.
        But weaknesses and gaps remain in the visa process that
    could be exploited by those determined to do us harm. Key
    policies still lack clarity. State's consular staffing patterns
    often do not reflect current threats and new workloads.
    Training should be more focused on terrorism travel patterns
    and fraud prevention. Information sharing, although
    significantly improved, could be better. And the visa security
    program of the Department of Homeland Security [DHS], lacks
    strategic direction.
        In a report released by the Government Accountability
    Office, GAO recommends that State Department clarify visa
    procedures and better focus consular resources on visa posts
    based on national security implications and workloads; junior
    officers should not be dropped into high-threat, high-volume
    posts without language skills and adequate senior supervision.
    But that is still happening.
        GAO also recommends Congress increase the limited access
    consular officers get to the FBI criminal history records
    maintained by the National Crime Information Center [NCIC].
    Consular officers today cannot tell whether an individual hit
    on the NCIC data base represents a major crime or an overdue
    speeding ticket. The necessary followup request to the FBI can
    take weeks to produce an answer that could be retrieved in just
    minutes.
        Recognizing the national security implications of the visa
    process, Congress charged DHS to set overall visa policies. As
    part of that mandate, DHS was specifically tasked to place visa
    security officers [VSOs], in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. But
    after 2 years, DHS has no qualitative or quantitative
    assessments of VSO activities in Saudi Arabia. There is no
    strategic plan to guide deployment of VSOs elsewhere.
        Balancing the demands of national security against the very
    real threat to facilitate commerce, education and tourism will
    never be easy. If we are to remain a welcoming and secure
    Nation, the visa process must function as an efficient and
    effective portal, admitting those who would enrich our culture,
    while denying entry to those who would seek to destroy it.
        Our witnesses bring a wealth of expertise and experience to
    this discussion of visa security. We appreciate their
    willingness to be here today and we look forward to their
    testimony.
        We have two panels. Our first panel is Mr. Jess T. Ford,
    Director of the International Affairs and Trade Division of the
    U.S. Government Accountability Office; Ambassador John E.
    Lange, Deputy Inspector General, U.S. Department of State; and
    Mr. Tony Edson, Acting Assistant Secretary for Visa Services,
    Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of State; and Ms.
    Elaine Dezenski, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy,
    Border and Transportation Security, U.S. Department of Homeland
    Security.
        Did I pronounce your name correctly?
        Ms. Dezenski. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Shays. OK. So let me provide the oath. If you would
    stand, we will administer the oath and then we will start with
    testimony.
        [Witnesses sworn.]
        Mr. Shays. Note for the record our witnesses have responded
    in the affirmative. And we will start with you Mr. Ford. And
    what my practice in this subcommittee is is to do 5 minutes,
    but we roll over for another 5 minutes. It's not my preference
    that you take 10, but it is my preference that you don't try to
    rush the 5 and if you go 7 or 8, whatever, we are more than
    happy.
        We invited you because we did want to hear your testimony.
    So, Mr. Ford.

    STATEMENTS OF JESS T. FORD, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND
        TRADE DIVISION; U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE;
       AMBASSADOR JOHN E. LANGE, DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S.
       DEPARTMENT OF STATE; TONY EDSON, ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT
     SECRETARY FOR VISA SERVICES, BUREAU OF CONSULAR AFFAIRS, U.S.
        DEPARTMENT OF STATE; AND ELAINE DEZENSKI, ACTING DEPUTY
       ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY, BORDER AND TRANSPORTATION
             SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

                       STATEMENT OF JESS T. FORD

        Mr. Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like my complete
    statement included in the record.
        Mr. Shays. Absolutely.
        Mr. Ford. I'm pleased to be here today to discuss two
    recent reports on actions that have been taken by the
    Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security to
    strengthen the nonimmigrant visa process as an antiterrorism
    tool.
        All 19 of the September 11th terrorists hijackers were
    issued a visa, which is a U.S. travel document foreign citizens
    must generally obtain before entering the country temporarily
    for business, tourism, or other reasons. In deciding to approve
    or deny a visa application, the State Department consular
    officers are on the front line of defense in protecting the
    United States against potential terrorists and others whose
    entry would likely be harmful to U.S. national interests. But
    consular officers must balance this security responsibility
    against the need to facilitate legitimate travel.
        In October 2002, we reported on a number of shortcomings in
    the visa process and made several recommendations aimed at
    strengthening the role of national security in the process. The
    recommendations called for improvements in procedures for
    addressing heightened border security concerns, enhanced
    staffing, and counterterrorism training for consular officers.
    Today, I will discuss the changes that have been made since our
    2002 report to strengthen the visa process, as well as areas
    that deserve additional management attention.
        First, I will focus on our report issued today on changes
    in the visa policy and guidance consular resources, including
    staffing and training and the extent to which U.S. agencies
    share information with visa adjudicators.
        Second, I will discuss our July 2005 report on the
    placement of DHS visa security officers at U.S. embassies and
    consulates overseas.
        The State Department and DHS have taken many steps to
    strengthen the visa process as an antiterrorism tool.
    Specifically, the State Department has provided clear
    instructions to consular officers on the importance of national
    security to the visa process. At every post we visited,
    including those with special interests to antiterrorism
    efforts, the consular staff viewed security as their top
    priority, while recognizing the importance of facilitating
    legitimate travel.
        To further strengthen the visa process, the State
    Department has increased the hiring of consular officers,
    targeted recruitment of foreign language-proficient officers,
    revamped consular training with the focus on counterterrorism,
    and increased resources to combat fraud. Further, intelligence
    and law enforcement agencies have shared more information for
    consular officers' use in conducting name checks on visa
    applicants.
        Despite these improvements, we found that further actions
    are needed to enhance the process. Consular officers we
    interviewed said that guidance is needed on the interagency
    protocols regarding DHS staff roles and responsibilities
    overseas. Actions are also needed to ensure that the State
    Department has sufficient experienced staff with the necessary
    language skills at key consular posts.
        While the State Department has hired more consular
    officers, it continues to experience shortages in supervisory
    staff. As of April 30th of this year, 26 percent of midlevel
    positions were either vacant or filled by junior officers.
    Moreover, State has not prioritized the staffing of its more
    experienced officers to key posts. As an example, we found that
    the visa sections in critical posts, in Saudi Arabia and Egypt,
    were staffed with first-year, entry-level officers and no
    permanent midlevel visa chiefs to provide direct supervision
    and oversight. Our report issued today calls for further
    improvements and training in fraud prevention as well as
    information sharing with the FBI.
        The Homeland Security Act of 2002 authorized the assignment
    of DHS employees to U.S. embassies and consulates to provide
    expert advice and training to consular officers regarding visa
    security. In September 2003, DHS assigned visa security
    officers to consular posts in Saudi Arabia. DHS also plans to
    assign staff to other posts to strengthen the visa process at
    these locations.
        The visa security officers assigned to Saudi Arabia review
    all visa applications prior to a final adjudication by consular
    officers and assist consular officers with interviews and fraud
    prevention. According to senior officials in Saudi Arabia, the
    visa security officers in Riyadh and Jedda have strengthened
    the process. However, no comprehensive data exists to measure
    the performance of the visa security officers or to demonstrate
    their impact. In addition, the requirement to review all visa
    applications in Saudi Arabia limits the officers' ability to
    provide additional training and other services to consular
    officials, such as assisting with interviews and training in
    visa fraud.
        We found that DHS planned to expand the visa security
    program to five overseas posts in fiscal year 2005 and intends
    to further expand the program in future years. However, the
    expansion of the program has been delayed because embassy and
    State Department officials have raised concerns about the
    program's goals, staffing requirements, and coordination plans.
    According to DHS officials, the Department provided sufficient
    responses throughout 2004 and 2005 to address these concerns.
    However, we noted that DHS has not developed a strategic plan
    for its visa security operations in Saudi Arabia or at any of
    the expanded posts, but defines mission priorities, long-term
    goals and identifies outcomes expected at each post. We have
    made recommendations that DHS develop such a strategic plan to
    guide visa security process and to develop performance data to
    show what impact their agents are having overseas.
        Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I'd be happy to
    answer any of your questions.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Ford.
        [Note.--The GAO report entitled, ``Border Security,
    Strengthened Visa Process Would Benefit from Improvements in
    Staffing and Information Sharing,'' may be found in
    subcommittee files.]
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]

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        Mr. Shays. Ambassador.

                 STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR JOHN E. LANGE

        Mr. Lange. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to
    provide the Office of Inspector General's observations about
    the Department of State's progress since 2002 in strengthening
    the visa process as an antiterrorism tool. For the sake of
    brevity, Mr. Chairman, I will today present highlights from the
    full statement that I am submitting for the record.
        Among OIG's body of work on this subject over the last 4
    years, our December 2002 report on visa issuance policy and
    procedures continues to serve as a baseline to measure the
    Department of State's progress in strengthening nonimmigrant
    operations worldwide. That report identified four areas where
    the visa process needed strengthening, including improved
    executive oversight and supervisory leadership, increased
    consular section staffing, specialized national security
    training, and the need for adequate consular workstation
    facilities for implementing new visa process requirements.
        We also have identified fraud prevention programs as a
    fifth key topic.
        Overall, in our judgment, the Department of State has made
    extensive strides in strengthening the visa process since
    September 11th, a day that profoundly changed U.S. border
    security policy. Regarding executive oversight and supervisory
    leadership, recent OIG reviews indicate that the Bureau of
    Consular Affairs has made substantial improvements in
    standardizing visa policy and procedures. Since 2002, the
    Bureau has repeatedly reinforced the consular oversight
    responsibilities of chiefs of mission and has instituted a
    mandatory annual certification of consular management controls.
        Our recent report on the visa referral process, dated March
    2005, discussed dramatic improvement in the referral system
    that is now codified, more transparent, and more accountable
    than before, with Ambassadors and deputy chiefs of mission
    clearly responsible for a mission's referral system and its
    integrity.
        On consular section staffing, this office in 2002
    identified inadequate staffing levels of consular sections as
    the single most serious impediment to effective management of
    nonimmigrant visa processing worldwide. The Department of State
    now employs a staffing model, updated every 2 years, that
    measures the increased work loads for visa officer positions
    due to ongoing changes in visa processing requirements,
    including more personal interviews, more security clearances,
    and the new fingerprinting requirement.
        Although some improvements have occurred, determining
    adequate staffing has been increasingly complex. OIG inspection
    observations would lead us to caution that a one-size-fits-all
    model does not suit the differences in the type of visa
    clientele and mix of processing requirements found in overseas
    posts. The Department has taken steps to mitigate the problem
    of assigning entry-level officers to consular sections in
    rotational positions that involve only 1 year of service in a
    consular section. And this is a matter that we continue to
    monitor in response to our recommendations from back in 2002.
        Regarding national security training, the Department of
    State has made substantial strides in training consular
    officers and has addressed requirements spelled out in the
    Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act. In our 2002
    report, we recommended that the Department develop special
    analytical interview training to help identify visa applicants
    who are a potential threat to national security.
        The Foreign Service Institute's basic consular course now
    includes added emphasis on visa security, including a half-day
    program on counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency.
    Over 95 percent of respondents to our survey for a report on
    standards for refusing visa applicants reported that they had
    received training in analytical interviewing techniques. OIG
    has found that many consular sections are following the
    Department's information-sharing directive and arranging with
    other mission elements to provide current region-specific
    training on law enforcement, counterterrorism, and techniques
    for detecting possible terrorist or criminal connections.
        As noted in our 2002 report, many posts had longstanding,
    inadequate consular work space and facilities. Over the past 3
    years, many urgently needed renovations for consular spaces
    were completed, using funds from a special 3-year consular
    improvement initiative. OIG continues to identify consular
    sections with urgent work space needs and believes this type of
    flexible funding is necessary to respond to rapid changes in
    nonimmigrant visa trends.
        In November 2004, OIG issued a report on visa and passport
    fraud prevention programs that lauded the Bureaus of Consular
    Affairs and Diplomatic Security for their joint initiative in
    creating 25 overseas investigative positions staffed by
    assistant regional security officers who have produced clear,
    positive results in detecting and deterring fraud and
    corruption. However, in spite of numerous communications to the
    field, some consular officers have stated that mission
    management and consular managers have not been effectively
    informed of the importance of antifraud efforts and their
    direct bearing on border security.
        In summary, it is clear from our reviews that the
    Department has made substantial improvements to address gaps
    and vulnerabilities in the visa process over the last 4 years,
    but continued progress needs to be monitored closely.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be pleased to address your
    questions.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much, Ambassador.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Lange follows:]

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        Mr. Shays. Mr. Edson.

                        STATEMENT OF TONY EDSON

        Mr. Edson. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to
    discuss today's GAO report and the steps the Department of
    State has taken to strengthen the visa process.
        Mr. Shays. Your mic is on, I think. Just tap, just so I
    know.
        Yes, it's on. We have one mic that's a little softer than
    the rest.
        Mr. Edson. Thank you for having me here.
        The research and recommendations the GAO makes are vital to
    the Department's work as we move with the Department of
    Homeland Security toward our common goal of national security
    and secured prosperity. We know the goal posts are never
    stationary. There are always additional steps that we will
    take, can take, to improve visa security.
        The Department has made significant and rapid changes to
    the visa process since September 11th in an effort to push out
    our border security beyond the United States. As the report
    notes, today's consular officers understand that national
    security is job one, while they work to facilitate legitimate
    travel. In order to support that work, the Department has
    incorporated some 8.9 million records from the FBI National
    Crime Information Center into the consular lookout and support
    system name-check data base, doubling the records on file.
        We have implemented new regulations requiring near-
    universal personal interviews, rolled out the new tamper-
    resistant Lincoln nonimmigrant visa foil and completed
    worldwide deployment of biometric software and facial
    recognition screening, and the list of improvements goes on.
        As the GAO recognized, the Department has taken numerous
    steps to enhance consular training. For example, we have
    quadrupled the number of offerings of FSI's special course on
    fraud prevention for managers, allowing over 130 consular
    personnel to complete the course in fiscal year 2005. The
    content of the course has also been revised to incorporate
    additional material on counterterrorism and a briefing from the
    National Targeting Center.
        We agree with the GAO that we must expand this training
    further and have already begun to do so, developing a course
    specifically on countering terrorist travel. Moreover, because
    terrorist travel trends are inherently changeable and often
    country specific, we believe that additional instructions
    should center on ways to access current intelligence data.
    Therefore, as part of the basic consular course, all new
    consular officers are trained to effectively access relevant
    information from the Department and other USG agency sources on
    the SIPRNet classified Internet.
        The GAO's report cites the need for greater and more
    targeted language training, FSI or the Foreign Service
    Institute, has already developed consular-specific modules for
    most of the languages it teaches and has also expanded upon our
    post language programs.
        In light of the security concerns raised in this report,
    the Department will give careful consideration to extending the
    current time limitation on language training for entry-level
    officers assigned to critical threat countries.
        The report also recommends that State develop a
    comprehensive worldwide staffing plan. We believe we have such
    a plan, and it's being revised on an ongoing basis.
        We would be happy to brief the subcommittee in more detail
    on human resource planning activities, at your convenience. For
    now, allow me to note that the Department periodically reviews
    all consular staffing needs to ensure that workload needs are
    met around the world.
        Based on these work load reviews, which also take into
    account priorities such as assistance to American citizens, the
    Department has established over 400 new consular positions
    since fiscal year 2002. Our increased level of hiring in fiscal
    years 2002 to 2004 has since produced our largest tenured class
    to date. These 152 newly tenured generalists included
    approximately 70 consular officers now eligible to compete for
    midlevel jobs and to help address the midlevel gap frequently
    cited in the GAO report.
        An important component of interagency information sharing
    is access to complete information. This is especially true on
    the visa interviewing line where such information is directly
    relevant to fighting terrorism.
        As I mentioned previously, in early 2002 and in response to
    the Patriot Act, we worked closely with the FBI to transfer
    names from FBI data bases into the class system culminating in
    an on-line linkage of those two data bases. Since then,
    thousands of ineligible visa applicants have been denied visas
    who otherwise might have received visas had their names not
    been transferred to our lookout system.
        However, the GAO report emphasizes that consular officers
    need some additional information from FBI data bases in order
    to increase their operational efficiency and enhance national
    security. We in DHS have had fruitful discussions with FBI on
    this matter and look forward to a solution that meets our
    needs.
        Mr. Chairman, thank you for your attention. At this time,
    I'm available to answer any questions.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much, Mr. Edson.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Edson follows:]

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        Mr. Shays. Ms. Dezenski.

                      STATEMENT OF ELAINE DEZENSKI

        Ms. Dezenski. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the
    opportunity to appear before you this morning.
        I think, as we're all aware, developing and implementing
    effective visa policy is complex and very difficult work, and
    it is so because we strive to achieve a balance so that the
    visa system cannot be exploited by those who wish us harm,
    while it also provides, or should provide, an open and inviting
    system that encourages and facilitates legitimate visitors to
    the United States.
        DHS oversight of the visa issuance process is the first
    component of a layered security approach. We realize that this
    process must continually be reviewed, refined, and improved;
    and we appreciate the work of our partners at the State
    Department and the work that both GAO and our own OIG have done
    to help us make our programs as effective as possible.
        Meeting our legislative mandate under section 428 of the
    Homeland Security Act requires us to focus on several critical
    areas involving visa policy oversight. This morning, I'd like
    to talk about three of those areas: first, our visa security
    officer presence and effectiveness; second, training for
    consular officers; and finally, ensuring that the visa issuance
    process supports our Secure Borders, Open Doors vision.
        The deployment of VSOs, or visa security officers, to high-
    threat areas of the world is top priority. In support of
    congressional mandates, the Department has established two visa
    security operations in Saudi Arabia, which have made the visa
    issuance process in that country more secure. In the first 9
    months of this fiscal year, VSOs reviewed 24,000 visa
    applications is Saudi Arabia. This additional scrutiny has
    prevented ineligible applicants from receiving visas, helped to
    identify new threats and fraud trends, generated new watch list
    entries and led to the initiation of domestic investigations.
    Per GAO recommendation, we are currently creating a data base
    to establish a baseline of these types of VSO contributions
    that will help better quantify our success and our performance
    measures.
        Even as we are reviewing 100 percent of visa applications,
    we have not seen a negative impact on visa processing times. In
    fact, for the time period covering 2003 to 2004, State reported
    an improvement in processing times at these locations.
        VSOs have also instituted a prescreening process that
    allows consular officers and VSOs to more effectively focus
    applicant interviews on areas of interest and concern.
        Finally, VSOs work closely with consular officers during
    the adjudication process to closely scrutinize applications,
    clarify immigration law, review suspect documents, and to
    clarify or interpret derogatory information the consular
    officer may encounter from a data base check. Our VSOs come
    into the job with an average of 15 years of law enforcement and
    related experience, and that can be very beneficial to consular
    officers who may be relatively new to their duties.
        GAO's most recent report on visa security process
    identifies the need to put the right people in the right place
    with the right skills. We fully endorse this assessment. We are
    confident that the Department's plans for expansion of the VSO
    program addresses the critical human resource needs identified
    in the report.
        In order to facilitate deployment of VSOs to new
    consulates, both DHS and State will need to increase efforts to
    educate the embassies on the role of VSOs at the post. We
    concur with GAO's recommendation that the Department develop
    additional guidance on the relationship between DHS and State
    in the visa process and this effort has already begun. We are
    moving ahead with the deployment of VSOs to five additional
    high-threat locations beginning next month.
        We appreciate State Department's support of these efforts.
    GAO also made specific recommendations to further integrate and
    share law enforcement information. While most of the reports'
    recommendations refer to the need for data base improvements,
    the VSOs themselves are an important link in the information-
    sharing process. Automated systems cannot substitute for human
    law enforcement expertise.
        By expanding the Department's presence in consulates, we
    can facilitate the consular officer's access to information and
    law enforcement analysis critical to their adjudication
    process. For example, in Saudi Arabia, the VSOs provide up-to-
    date information on newly identified document vulnerabilities
    directly to consular officers, such as the types of counterfeit
    documents that have recently been seized at U.S. ports of
    entry.
        Now I'd like to talk a little bit about training. DHS has a
    statutory obligation to provide training to improve the
    security of the visa process. This is a critical function that
    is important not only for the consular officers already at
    post, but also during the basic consular training taking place
    stateside. VSOs conduct training sessions for consular officers
    on topics ranging from port of entry procedures, admissibility,
    fingerprinting, fraudulent document detection, interview
    techniques and immigration and national security law.
        We have also reviewed the basic consular officer training
    at the Foreign Service Institute, and we are working with State
    to identify and develop additional homeland security modules.
    VSO officials conduct classes on the visa security program
    during consular officer basic training, and we have
    participated in two Department of State regional conferences
    and have participated with State in their consular management
    assistance team visits to various posts. We believe that the
    positive training environment developed at the two consulates
    in Saudi Arabia will be a model for VSOs deployed to new posts.
        Training is but one area where we feel VSOs can offer a
    significant value add. In fact, by allowing for some
    flexibility in terms of how we review applications and at what
    volume we review, as suggested by GAO, our VSOs could spend
    additional time on training and other value-added oversight
    capabilities.
        Finally, DHS and State have made a tremendous effort to
    combat the perception that security measures implemented to
    strengthen the visa process have made it too difficult for
    legitimate travelers to come to the United States. We've talked
    extensively with business organizations, educational
    institutions and the scientific community, and one of the
    issues consistently raised by these groups was the lengthy
    timeframe for visa processing, often due to the need for
    additional security checks on certain travelers. Based on this
    feedback, we have worked with our interagency counterparts to
    identify areas of the visa issuance process, such as the
    security advisory opinion [SAO] process, where we can implement
    more efficient and effective procedures.
        One example of the type of efficiencies we have identified
    is the validity of certain SAO clearances where we have
    extended the validity period for students, certain types of
    temporary workers and certain types of business visas. This
    change is a significant improvement of the previous requirement
    of a new SAO clearance for each individual trip.
        In making this change, DHS and State carefully reviewed the
    existing process and set strict limitations on when the
    extended clearances apply. In this instance, we were able to
    fine-tune the process to better facilitate travel while
    maintaining security. We continue to work with State to
    identify other areas where we can achieve similar results.
        Visa security is an integral part of the overall border
    management system. It impacts the security of our citizens, our
    visitors, affects billions of dollars in trade and travel, and
    helps define relations with our international partners. We
    simply can't afford to get it wrong.
        I want to thank the subcommittee for the support, and I
    look forward to working in partnership with the State
    Department and members of the committee on this complex and
    critical homeland security task. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Dezenski follows:]

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        Mr. Shays. I thank you very much.
        You had a nice way of describing really what our task is. I
    mean, this is the GAO, the Inspector General, Congress, working
    with DHS and the Department of State to make the system work
    better.
        I think for the most part, the system is working better
    both for GAO and Inspector General; but we are going to kind of
    get underneath and just have a better sense of it.
        But I wanted to start out--and, Mr. Edson, I guess you
    would be the person to do it; I want you to tell me. We
    basically have an immigrant process and we have a nonimmigrant
    process, tourist, student visas and business folks coming in
    and out and probably just a whole host of others as well.
        But am I correct in thinking as immigrant and nonimmigrant?
        Mr. Edson. Yes.
        Mr. Shays. OK. Walk me through what used to happen before
    September 11th, before DHS, before we put this focus on how did
    19, 20 people, who were not U.S. citizens, end up getting into
    the United States and so on. So walk me through first the
    nonimmigrant, either way, immigrant or nonimmigrant.
        And then I want you to tell me what it was and what it is
    today or what we want it to be today. I'm trying to set the
    stage here.
        Mr. Edson. At a fairly high level perhaps?
        Mr. Shays. Yes. In other words, what was it before
    September 11th? How did the system work?
        Mr. Edson. Immigrants--actually, the system's been pretty
    standardized since the late 1990's with the deployment of a
    uniform automation platform for us overseas. So beginning at
    about that time, a nonimmigrant applying for a tourist or
    student visa would submit an application, a printed
    application, a single-page form, back and front, with a
    photograph attached and the passport.
        A large percentage of those cases were submitted without
    personal appearance required. People would submit them through
    a, what we call the ``drop box.'' It might be something as
    simple as a wooden box with a slot in it in front of the
    embassy, or through a travel agent, through a school
    educational group. The applications would then be reviewed.
        Some people were interviewed; depending on local
    conditions, threat and fraud indicators, many were not. The
    application was reviewed by our local staff for completeness,
    then a visa record created in our system. That would kick off a
    name check automatically. Based on the results of the name
    check and a review of the application, an officer would then
    approve or deny the case.
        Denials only took place in person. You'd have to come in in
    person for an interview for a denial. But either through an
    interview, or without, the case would be approved or denied,
    and then subsequently issued, and the issued foil placed in the
    passport and given back to the applicant.
        Mr. Shays. But when you checked names with the record
    thing, what was the significance of that? Because you didn't
    really have anything to match the names with, did you?
        Mr. Edson. Yes.
        Mr. Shays. What did you have?
        Mr. Edson. Even before September 11th, the consular lookout
    and support system had several million records, including the
    terrorist lookout records that subsequently became the core of
    the data base managed today by the National Counterterrorism
    Center. So we had that.
        We did not have FBI data at that time. We had enforcement
    data, most of the law enforcement data from DHS.
        Mr. Shays. So the FBI data would be basically a criminal
    record?
        Mr. Edson. Criminal records we did not have at that time.
        Mr. Shays. Basically, if you were a nonimmigrant, you could
    pretty much come into the United States either as a tourist, a
    student, or a business? And are there a lot of other
    nonimmigrants? I mean, is it countless or are those the big
    three?
        Mr. Edson. Those are the big three. There are varieties of
    working classes.
        Mr. Shays. So you could basically come into the United
    States without ever having to be interviewed, without ever
    making a personal appearance?
        Mr. Edson. Right.
        Mr. Shays. And if you were to deny someone, they were given
    basically the right to have an interview. You would not deny
    someone without at least giving them an interview?
        Mr. Edson. Correct, to make sure that we were making the
    correct decision.
        Mr. Shays. OK. And that's with nonimmigrant.
        Now, that was in the past. What was it with immigrant
    status?
        Mr. Edson. Immigrant status has always required--it's a
    much more regular, drawn-out process that begins with CIS in
    most cases, the Citizens and Immigration Services at DHS, for
    petition.
        Mr. Shays. They weren't DHS then, so----
        Mr. Edson. For INS. And it began with INS at the time.
        A petition that is filed, most cases will go through our
    National Visa Center in New Hampshire, where we do sort of
    value-added clerical support for the overseas posts, some of
    the early correspondence with the outposts.
        Mr. Shays. That covers the entire United States?
        Mr. Edson. For us it covers the entire world. And when the
    case was ready for interview, it would be sent overseas to our
    consular sections where 100 percent of immigrants were
    interviewed. And then the visa process to conclusion, if they
    were eligible, we did the same sorts of name checks. Immigrants
    have always--well, for the past several years, in any event,
    immigrants have been checked against NCIC.
        Mr. Shays. I don't want to do since September 11th yet.
    Before then.
        Mr. Edson. Before then, they were being checked, I just
    don't remember when in the 1990's that began. But we checked
    immigrants against the FBI records for criminal records.
        So we had that check done, and the case then would be
    processed to conclusion overseas, again always with a personal
    interview with an immigrant case.
        Mr. Shays. OK. So the process involved an interview, right,
    for an immigrant?
        Now describe to me what's different about both nonimmigrant
    today, versus what it was--you described what it was--and then
    the immigrant.
        Mr. Edson. For nonimmigrants, the differences are stark.
    Obviously, in addition to that flow that I described before,
    the most significant changes are regulatory changes that we
    made in August 2003 to require personal appearance from nearly
    all applicants. Those changes were enacted in legislation in
    December 2004. So nearly every applicant is now coming in for a
    personal interview.
        We expanded the special screening procedures, the screening
    that only a small percentage of applicants go through, but it's
    a targeted class, targeted demographics identified by law
    enforcement or intelligence.
        The data in the matrix----
        Mr. Shays. I'm sorry. I had my Blackberry on, and that's
    why we're getting the feedback evidently.
        I'm one step behind again, so I'm going to ask you to start
    over. I apologize. I want you to start over again.
        Mr. Edson. Oh, sure.
        The biggest changes, post-September 11th have been in the
    nonimmigrant process which, as you could tell, was slightly
    less formal than the immigrant process before September 11th.
    Beginning in August 2003, we published a regulation requiring
    additional interviews, a much higher percentage of these
    applicants to be interviewed. That same regulation was
    essentially enacted into statute in December 2004. There are
    very few opportunities for waiver of personal appearance now
    for nonimmigrants.
        Mr. Shays. So basically the rule is, you interview?
        Mr. Edson. Right.
        Mr. Shays. And that, if you don't interview, there has to
    be an exception?
        Mr. Edson. An exception in the statute.
        Mr. Shays. OK. So that is one big difference?
        Mr. Edson. That's one big difference. Fingerprinting is a
    major difference. We're now collecting the two index finger
    scans from all applicants for whom that's required. We're using
    the same standard that U.S. Visit uses at the port of entry, so
    the very young, the very old and the diplomats are not scanned.
    That is a second big difference.
        Those fingerprints, not only are we collecting the
    biometric information, but we're running it against the IDENT
    biometric data base maintained by DHS that includes significant
    amounts of FBI information. So we're catching people,
    imposters, criminals daily. Large numbers of people are being
    caught that wouldn't have been caught before because of the
    printing.
        We have changed the way in which work is processed in our
    sections so that local employees, host nationals, host country
    nationals or locally engaged American personnel, say, spouses
    of Foreign Service officers, they are actually allowed to do
    far less today than they were before September 11th. We've
    taken them out of anything having to do with the name check,
    for example. They have very limited involvement in the
    biometric system. Just as a security measure, we added that in.
        We expanded the special targeted screening, which doesn't
    apply to a large number of applicants, but some applicants are
    subject to additional screening based on demographics
    identified by law enforcement and intelligence communities.
    That body of people has actually expanded. So we are screening
    more people that way, and we share more information.
        The name check system that's behind all this has more than
    doubled in size since September 11th, most significantly with
    the inclusion of the FBI data.
        Mr. Shays. Now the FBI data this committee added to the DHS
    bill, but the data is somewhat vague.
        Mr. Edson. The data is incomplete. The Department of
    Justice, in their comments on the GAO report, did a nice job of
    summarizing some of the issues involved. Basically, they're
    managing a biometric data base that we are trying to access on
    a name-retrievable basis. What we get back is very limited
    biographic information from NCIII. Much of the information in
    that data base has no direct bearing on eligibility for a visa,
    things like traffic violations or----
        Mr. Shays. But are you able to distinguish between them?
        Mr. Edson. We are not able to distinguish based on a name
    check return. We need to submit a 10-print set to the FBI and
    get the criminal record in order to distinguish what's
    important and what isn't.
        Mr. Shays. Basically, what you want is the criminal record?
        Mr. Edson. Or enough of the criminal record that we can
    determine whether or not it's germane to visa adjudication.
        Mr. Shays. And this has happened for a while. And the
    argument for this process working this way is what? Why would
    we not streamline this?
        Mr. Edson. A couple of arguments. The Patriot Act actually
    requires that we submit 10 prints to access this data.
        I gather that other legislation that governs how criminal
    data is managed in the United States has similar impact; and
    then I have been told that the FBI indicates that the way the
    data base is structured makes it a little difficult to extract
    some of the information, like charge and disposition.
        Mr. Shays. The bottom line, though, each one of these
    individuals is not an American citizen?
        Mr. Edson. Correct.
        Mr. Shays. I mean, so we are really asking about the
    criminal records of someone who is overseas?
        Mr. Edson. Correct.
        Mr. Shays. And we are trying to protect their privacy
    rights?
        Ms. Dezenski, basically you're doing what INS was doing,
    correct, as a general rule, at DHS?
        Ms. Dezenski. Within the Border and Transportation
    directorate most of our focus is on the nonimmigrant process.
    CIS and shipment services handles most of the immigrant work.
    But, yes, we have the former INS function.
        Mr. Shays. OK. Well, let me ask you this.
        Of the people that existed before in some other named
    agency, what are they doing differently today than they did
    before September 11th? Forget where they're located, but INS is
    basically under your jurisdiction, correct?
        Ms. Dezenski. Correct.
        Mr. Shays. What do they do differently now than they did
    before?
        Ms. Dezenski. I think we can probably point to a couple of
    major process changes. I'm not as familiar on the immigrant
    side, but I can tell you, for example, that there's increased
    access to certain types of data bases for the immigrant review
    process. That's a by-product, I think, of the work that we've
    done through U.S. Visit and their ability to integrate numerous
    data bases across the Department that have both biographic and
    biometric information. So not only does that help us at the
    port of entry, but it also can be used in terms of the case
    management process with NCIS. So I think that is one good
    example.
        If you look more closely at the nonimmigrant side of what
    we do, you know, we can point to everything from the
    implementation of U.S. Visit entry and, now, exit processing to
    greater information sharing with the FBI.
        Tony alluded to the work that we are doing with our IDENT
    and FBI's IAFIS data bases, to bring those two biometric
    resources together so we have more information available at our
    ports of entry and at consular posts. We're moving toward the
    10-print standard so that as people are coming into the
    country, we are not going to be taking two prints; we're going
    to be moving toward 10-print. That also applies ultimately to
    the visa issuance process as well.
        So we can point to numerous activities that we have
    undertaken to strengthen the system and a lot of these broader
    moves that we have made on information sharing and data
    integration and management have spillover effects for both the
    immigrant and the nonimmigrant side of what we do.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you.
        Mr. Van Hollen has joined us and I can yield to him or I
    can just proceed with some questions to Mr. Lange. But before
    recognizing him, I would ask unanimous consent that all members
    of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement
    in the record and that the record remain open for 3 days for
    that purpose. And without objection, so ordered.
        I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be
    permitted to include their written statements in the record.
    And without objection, so ordered.
        Mr. Van Hollen.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I want to thank Chairman Shays for conducting these
    hearings and thank all the witnesses for being here this
    morning. As you all said in your testimony, we have an obvious,
    important mission within the immigration's nonimmigrant visa
    system to make sure, No. 1, that we protect our security, but
    also to make sure that we don't stymie unnecessarily the
    ability of legitimate visitors that come to the United States.
        And there was a period of time where I think that became a
    very serious issue, where our system was resulting in many
    legitimate visitors not coming here. I think that continues to
    be an issue, but I'm pleased with the progress that we've made.
        I have heard a lot of complaints--I think, legitimate
    complaints--from those in the area of higher education,
    scientists, of the delay and that, of course, has an impact on
    our economy here and our ability to move forward in many areas
    of research. Obviously, within the business community, there
    were lots of complaints from legitimate business travelers. So
    I want to thank you for the progress that's been made in that
    area.
        I look forward to working with you, especially if you could
    pass along, Mr. Edson, my thanks to Assistant Secretary Maura
    Harty for her efforts in that area because I think she's been
    working very diligently for all of us.
        Let me just ask a couple of questions about the visa
    security officers, if I could, because one question--I'm
    looking at the GAO report and maybe I should start with you,
    Mr. Ford. To what extent do you believe the visa security
    officers are really providing value added to our consular
    officers? In other words, is there duplication? Are some of the
    tasks that are being performed by visa security officers tasks
    that can be performed by consular officers if we gave them
    additional training, and would that be a better approach to
    providing for our security than having another layer?
        I don't have a position on this issue. I'm really looking
    to you, as someone who's taken an independent look at it, for
    your advice.
        Mr. Ford. Yes, sure.
        I think it's difficult to answer that question at this
    point because so far they've only been assigned to two overseas
    posts in Saudi Arabia, so the amount of information that's
    available about the value added of those positions is somewhat
    limited.
        Clearly, we visited Saudi Arabia in the course of doing our
    work. We met with all the visa security officers there. We met
    with all the senior embassy officials. I think the general
    sense of everyone we talked to there was that they were, in
    fact, bringing some value added to the process.
        We noted at the time of our visit that the State Department
    consular officers assigned there were largely junior people, so
    having an experienced law enforcement individual there actually
    helped them get their job done.
        But I can't generalize, based on one post, whether or not
    the overall effort is going to be value added or not. That is
    one of the reasons we recommended that the Department of
    Homeland Security, as they expand this program, provide more
    data on exactly what the value added is for these individuals,
    so that one can make a judgment as to whether or not, in fact,
    it's duplicating what consular officers are already doing, or
    whether they're providing some additional law enforcement
    training and expertise that right now we may not have in these
    posts.
        So I'd say at this point in time, it's an open issue as to
    whether or not this program is going to be value added or not.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you.
        If I could have some reaction from representatives of State
    Department and Homeland Security, I'd appreciate it.
        Ms. Dezenski. Thank you.
        Well, I think we feel very strongly within the Department
    that the visa security oversight and officer program needs to
    move forward with the additional deployments and that there's
    real value added to the process. I think we need to be sure
    that we're not comparing apples to oranges.
        The role of the consular officer, and Tony can speak to it
    better than I can, but it's primarily focused on visa
    adjudication, application review, specific skills inherent in
    the State Department process. We envision, and I think the way
    it's working in practice in Saudi Arabia, that the VSO role is
    slightly different. There is a review process of the visa
    application, and that is very important; but we also bring
    analysis of law enforcement information. We do reviews of
    trends, for example; and the types of information that we're
    seeing, we'd like to have our officers play a more regional
    role so that we can share information and gather trends across
    a region as opposed to just simply focusing on a particular
    country.
        We play an important role in training, whether it's working
    with the consular officers or even going out into the local
    community. For example, we worked with airlines in Saudi Arabia
    where we have been able to help them identify certain types of
    fraudulent documents.
        So I think the way to look at it is a different type of
    value add in that both of these functions are critical to
    making the process work. What we hope is that we can move
    forward with the deployments to the five additional areas that
    we've identified, recognizing that we need to work on the
    performance metrics so we have a better process for reporting
    back to you and that we get the strategic plan in place.
    However, we hope that we're not held up because of not having
    that plan completed.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you.
        Mr. Edson. We certainly agree with our DHS colleagues, with
    everything that Elaine said. The two functions are and ought to
    be different; and we've worked very closely and will continue
    to work very closely with DHS as that strategic plan is framed
    to ensure that we're not doing the same work, that there's
    genuine value added on both sides for all the activities that
    we undertake.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Well, let me ask you this. I mean, we
    obviously have the visa security officers in one post right
    now, Saudi Arabia, a plan to expand to five. We have hundreds
    of embassies around the world, and it would seem to me that
    where we have consular officers on the front line, I would hope
    that this additional training in security areas and being able
    to detect fraudulent documents and all that kind of thing is
    now being incorporated into the training of the consular
    officers.
        Has there been a change since September 11th with respect
    to that kind of training for consular officers? And why isn't
    it better to make sure that everybody going through the
    process, all the consular officers, are getting some of this
    more specialized training so that they can make the kind of
    assessments and analysis that the DHS folks are doing?
        Mr. Edson. Certainly, there have been significant changes
    in the training since September 11th. We added 3 or 4 days to
    the basic training course for consular officers to include 2
    days of analytical interviewing techniques and some significant
    time spent on fraudulent document identification and
    counterterrorism, briefings from other agencies.
        In addition, we have quadrupled the number of offerings of
    our fraud managers course so that we were able to put 130
    officers through that course last fiscal year.
        We have expanded an effort to get more local access; in the
    field access to intelligence information, we have expanded
    training on the classified Internet resources that we use to
    access intel. So we are taking both approaches. We are trying
    to make sure that our officers are as prepared as possible to
    deal with counterterrorism threats and fraudulent documents and
    fraud in general, while working with DHS to frame a role for
    the visa security officers that is complementary and does the
    best it can to secure the visa process.
        Mr. Van Hollen. OK. I just was a little concerned when you
    talked about having these totally separate functions with no
    overlap. I understand where you have both individuals there;
    that is important. Let's face it, the bulk of our consular
    officers are right now in stations around the world that have
    no visa security officer, and I think it's essential that they
    have that training so that there is a first line of defense.
        Let me ask you about the visa waiver program. I don't know
    how many countries--there are European countries where we have
    an arrangement whereby, if you come from one of those
    countries, you don't require a visa; is that right?
        Mr. Edson. Twenty-seven.
        Mr. Van Hollen. OK, 27 countries. And so what is required
    from those countries? Show a passport? What do you need to
    show?
        Ms. Dezenski. Yes, the requirement is to have a valid
    passport. And as you may be aware, we have actually implemented
    some new requirements in terms of what those passports need to
    encompass, a digital photo integrated into the data page as of
    October 26, 2005. In addition, we have specific statutory
    requirements that countries must follow to be part of the VWP.
    For example, they have to have a relatively low visa refusal
    rate. They have to have a low overstay rate, so we know that
    folks from that country aren't illegally remaining. And there
    are a couple of other criteria in that statute.
        So it's a combination of those statutory requirements, plus
    some of the new things that we require on the biometric
    passport and some refined requirements in terms of obtaining
    information on lost and stolen passports, so that we have a
    better handle on fraudulent documents coming in.
        Mr. Van Hollen. OK. I don't have a solution to this issue,
    but ultimately, I mean, it's fair to say, isn't it, that we are
    relying on the ability of the foreign governments of these 27--
    I mean the governments of these 27 countries to police the
    validity of these documents?
        Ms. Dezenski. We do require that they have certain
    standards for the documents. Yes, we do rely on them for the
    issuance of them. As VWP travelers come into the United States,
    they are still subject to U.S. Visit requirements, so we are
    taking their fingerprints and running their information against
    our data bases, which also happens when someone comes in with a
    visa. So there are additional measures in place at the port of
    entry so it is not as if these folks are just waved in with a
    passport.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Right. I guess what I'm suggesting is, as
    we commit lots of resources to making sure our consular
    officers are trained, or our visa security officers in those
    posts where people are issuing nonimmigrant visas, it's
    obviously essential that we make sure that we're confident that
    the documents being provided by those 27 countries that have
    waiver programs are not easily subject to forgery. Because it
    seems to me that if you're looking for a way to illegally enter
    the United States, and you believe the line of defense of the
    consular officers and the visa security officers is working
    pretty well, you're obviously going to be looking for another
    way in. And what exactly are we doing?
        We have the standards, I understand. Do we go beyond that
    in terms of trying to determine the extent to which these
    governments are protecting against forged documents, and
    illegal?
        Ms. Dezenski. Yes, absolutely. This has been a critical
    issue. In fact, we've had a lot of congressional interest over
    the past 6 to 8 months in terms of biometrics with foreign
    passports coming from VWP countries. And we've stated to those
    countries that not only do you need to meet the statutory
    requirements, but your passports need to encompass certain
    types of security features. One, of course, is a digital photo
    integrated into the page so you don't have a problem of
    tampering with the passport. Sometimes you can lift the top
    piece and take out the photo and put in a new photo. Very
    difficult to do when the digital photo is embedded in the
    document.
        Second, we're moving toward linking in a biometric chip to
    the passport so that the digital photo will actually be stored
    in the chip along with the biographic information in the
    passport. So when VWP passport holders come into the United
    States and the requirement is fully in place, we'll be checking
    that biometric information based on the chip in the passport.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Just realistically, what's the timeframe
    for that technology to be implemented?
        Ms. Dezenski. The digital photo requirement, which most
    countries are already meeting, will come into full effect
    October 26, 2005, so next month. And the requirement for the
    biometric chip follows 1 year later, and that will be required
    of all new passports issued after that date. So it will take
    some time to implement that.
        Mr. Van Hollen. OK, thank you very much.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. Let me, before going to
    you, Mr. Ford, and Mr. Lange, I have a little suspicion when my
    staff tells me how to pronounce names. They do it phonetically
    for me and the last two times they had it wrong, so they have
    credibility only in that area with me.
        I would like to add a clearer picture about both the VSOs
    and the waiver. What I am not clear about the VSOs is that I
    felt it was Congress' intent that we would have a number of
    them in a variety of countries.
        Was that your understanding of what Congress wanted?
        Ms. Dezenski. Yes, it was.
        Mr. Shays. And we have how many so far?
        Ms. Dezenski. We have--well, there are two congressionally
    mandated locations in Saudi Arabia. So we met that requirement.
    And then we immediately started developing----
        Mr. Shays. Just answer the question. How many do we have
    elsewhere?
        Ms. Dezenski. We just have the two.
        Mr. Shays. And how long has that been since the
    requirement, how much----
        Ms. Dezenski. 2003.
        Mr. Shays. That is pathetic, frankly. And there has to be a
    reason, and I want to know the reason. Is it because you have
    requested to have VSOs in other countries and State has said
    no, or you haven't even made the request?
        Ms. Dezenski. We have identified five additional locations
    where----
        Mr. Shays. Just answer my question first.
        The question is, have you--is it because you haven't made
    the requests yet or is it because the requests were made and
    State turned it down? And then you can tell me anything else
    after you answer my question.
        Ms. Dezenski. I don't think it is as simple as saying it is
    State because State denied our request.
        Mr. Shays. Start over again, take each question. Did you
    make a request to State to have VSO officers in other
    countries?
        Ms. Dezenski. Yes, we did.
        Mr. Shays. Don't hide things from us. You know, the issue I
    am having with this administration is that loyalty seems almost
    more important than the truth, that we don't get straight
    answers. And we didn't get straight answers for what we needed
    down in Louisiana. So straight answers matter to me. Answer my
    question and then give me spin.
        The question is have you requested to have VSO officers in
    any other country?
        Ms. Dezenski. Yes, we have.
        Mr. Shays. What countries?
        Ms. Dezenski. That is actually law enforcement sensitive
    information.
        Mr. Shays. How many countries?
        Ms. Dezenski. Five countries.
        Mr. Shays. So you have requested in five countries. When
    did you make the request? Last week or a year ago?
        Ms. Dezenski. The requests are made starting in 2003.
        Mr. Shays. So they were made in 2003. State Department has
    so far not agreed to the VSO officers in these countries, is
    that correct?
        Ms. Dezenski. Some of the NSDDs have been approved. I
    actually have a timeline.
        Mr. Shays. Mr. Edson, why has State Department not
    responded positively to these five requests?
        Mr. Edson. The requests were submitted under the National
    Security Decision Directive 38 procedures that charged our
    chief of commission, our Ambassadors to balance security--the
    needs of the Homeland Security Act to post Visa Security
    Officers overseas and other directives to right size the U.S.
    presence abroad.
        That discussion with DHS is something we have been actively
    involved in since 2003, when the requests were submitted, and
    that discussion is going forward. In some cases, the requests
    were approved and the positions are----
        Mr. Shays. Isn't it true that State Department originally
    opposed having VSOs in countries?
        Mr. Edson. Not that I am aware of, no.
        Mr. Shays. Did they request that there be VSOs in
    countries? Did we make the requests when we were working in
    that station? And if you don't know, you don't know.
        Mr. Edson. I am not aware that we positively requested
    them. We have worked close with DHS on every request----
        Mr. Shays. My sense is this has been a initiative of
    Congress that we have wanted the VSOs. Maybe, Mr. Ford, Mr.
    Lange, you can help me out here. Do either of you know? The
    question is, it was my sense that we were not happy with the
    job State Department was doing. I think I even got a call from
    the Secretary of State about some of what we wanted to have
    happen, and we were looking--there were amendments in this
    committee about taking away some authority from State. And I
    think the VSOs were the compromise, that State would still do
    much of this but we would have--we had people totally focused
    on security from DHS working within State Department. That is
    my understanding. I mean Mr. Ford, Mr. Lange, can you confirm
    it, not confirm it? You look like you're praying, Mr. Ford.
        Mr. Ford. Well, I can confirm that is what Congress wanted.
    I think based on what we know about why there was a delay is
    that the Department of Homeland Security and the individual
    embassies that were being considered had some disagreements
    about what exactly the role of these officers would be. And as
    Congressman Van Hollen mentioned earlier, that was apparently
    unclear to many of the Ambassadors about what exactly the role
    of the VSOs was going to go overseas and it took a while for
    clarity to come to the fore before they would approve these
    positions.
        My understanding is the five posts that they planned to
    expand, I think all but one of them have now been approved. So,
    four out of five----
        Mr. Shays. Why would that be an issue that we couldn't have
    an open conversation about? Just offhand? Tell me why. Without
    telling what me what the discussions are, tell me why. You
    know, we have had hearings about why we classify things so that
    no one sees them practically except a few people see the
    document. Just tell me why we can't as Members of Congress in
    open forum have a logical conversation about where these five
    stations would be? What is the reason why we can't have a
    discussion about that? Can someone tell me that? Why don't we
    start with State? Tell me why we can't have a discussion. And
    then DHS tell me why. What is the logic?
        Mr. Edson. I think we certainly, DHS colleagues have
    determined that the locations, specific locations, need to be
    treated sensitively.
        Mr. Shays. Just think about why. They needed to be treated
    sensitively because of what? Why?
        Mr. Edson. I would have to defer to DHS.
        Mr. Shays. Defer to DHS. And if you don't know, you don't
    have to give me an answer. If you don't know, you don't know.
        Ms. Dezenski. I think there are a couple things going on.
    The first thing is that the role of the VSO effort is to expand
    the footprint of the Department of Homeland Security and to
    expand our ability to oversee the process. The NSDD 38 process
    is obviously a legacy process. And in that process one of the
    goals for, and Tony will correct me if I am wrong, is to ensure
    that we are not expanding our footprint, or State isn't
    expanding its footprint overly to a size that they can't
    accommodate. So there is some inherent conflict between the two
    efforts, and somehow we have to get these processes to work in
    a more expedited fashion because the objectives of the two
    processes are not always in sync. So that is the first thing.
        Mr. Shays. Let me ask you, once the VSO is in a foreign
    country, will it be known that they are in that foreign
    country?
        Ms. Dezenski. It will certainly be known by----
        Mr. Shays. Are VSOs like CIA agents, that we are not
    supposed to let people know who they are, and so on? Maybe I
    don't have an understanding of what the classification of VSO
    officers are.
        Ms. Dezenski. My understanding is that they are law
    enforcement classification. We have treated the locations as
    law enforcement sensitive information. So we have not been
    public about how many people we have deployed and to what
    location other than congressionally mandated locations.
        Mr. Shays. So the answer to the question is like other law
    enforcement, we don't disclose where law enforcement officials
    are in various countries?
        Ms. Dezenski. Yes. We are not going to put out a press
    release, for example, that we are sending five people next
    month to country X.
        Mr. Shays. When they are in country, are they treated as
    State Department employees or DHS employees? When they go to
    cocktails, what do you do? I work for the State Department,
    what is your job?
        Ms. Dezenski. No. I don't think they have to say I could
    tell you but I would have to shoot you. I think they are known
    in country in terms of their role.
        I mentioned, for example, that we have officers that have
    worked with local airlines in Saudi Arabia, so it is not as if
    they are working under cover. But we are not public about how
    we identify high threat locations and how many people we put on
    the job to, you know----
        Mr. Shays. Let me----
        Ms. Dezenski [continuing]. For those functions.
        Mr. Shays. Let me back up a second. I was going to ask Mr.
    Ford what is the best thing, and Mr. Lange, what is the best
    thing that is happening and the worst thing with immigration,
    nonimmigrants and immigrants? What is State doing best? What
    are they doing worst? What is DHS doing best? What are they
    doing worst?
        I am not even to that level yet. Where I am at right now is
    I came to this hearing listening to four very nice
    presentations thinking, you know, we in Congress need to be
    fair. The Inspector General needs to be fair. GAO needs to be
    fair, you know, they are making good progress, and GAO and
    Inspector Generals, their job is not to be ``I gotcha'' nor is
    it my job to be ``I gotcha,'' or Mr. Van Hollen's. But I will
    tell you the uneasiness I have right now, and maybe you can
    sort it out. What I have is basically that we have to kind of
    give the party line that DHS doesn't want to offend State.
    State doesn't want to offend DHS. That is kind of what I am
    getting a feeling, that it was clear as one of the lines of
    questions that the VSOs were--they have said there is no clear
    plan on how many you want, no time lines, I guess kind of the
    impression that we were getting. And then I start to hear these
    kind of wobbly answers to what to me are fairly logical
    questions for us to ask. That is where I am now. So I have gone
    from a level of feeling kind of good about things to thinking,
    you know, if we peel away the onion, I don't like what I am
    seeing.
        And just to continue just briefly, the VSO officers were
    the compromise, I believe, that Congress wanted. Now if they
    aren't needed, if their job isn't defined, then let's have this
    debate and let's have an honest dialog from State. We don't
    want them, they are not needed, they basically don't interview
    anybody, they are just there. It is a waste. And we have too
    many different departments in State as it is. That part I agree
    with. We have, you know, sometimes 70-plus people who have
    nothing to do with State in our State Department.
        But then let us know and then, you know, let's get rid of
    the law. It is pathetic to only have in two countries, and
    there is something wrong about it. And I don't know what it is.
    But I want an answer to it. If State is dragging their feet, I
    want to know that. If it is VSOs that aren't needed, then let's
    forget the charade about even having them there.
        So let me ask you this. Tell me why we need these VSOs. I
    will start with State. And if you don't think we need them,
    just say I don't think we need them. I don't think you're going
    to lose your job by being honest.
        Mr. Edson. We need them because--let me start by saying----
        Mr. Shays. Slow down.
        Mr. Edson. We are not trying to block the implementation of
    the law in any way.
        Mr. Shays. You didn't ask for them. You didn't say, we
    couldn't do the job. That's true, right?
        Mr. Edson. Right. It is in the laws and we were trying to
    make it work.
        Mr. Shays. Fair enough.
        Mr. Edson. We have seen in Saudi Arabia, and seen
    increasing in your dialog with DHS, that there's a potential
    for a real benefit here. But as I suggested to Mr. Van Hollen,
    we are concerned to make sure that we get the mission right at
    the ``git go.'' Those are somewhat dangerous countries. There
    are already fairly small and strained physical plants in a lot
    of these countries. We would like to make sure that what the
    mission of the VSOs is really adds value. It seems like it
    does.
        Mr. Shays. It's been 2 years now, right?
        Mr. Edson. Right.
        Mr. Shays. It has been 2 years. What I am hearing you say
    basically, I will try to read between the lines. You didn't ask
    for them. Congress has said you have to have them. What I am
    hearing you say is basically you don't know what they are
    doing. And let me finish. This is what I am hearing.
        And what I am also hearing is stiff upper lip, you are
    going to try to make the best of it and you will find a place
    to put these folks. That is what is coming across, and that is
    OK.
        Mr. Edson. I'm a little bit misleading then perhaps.
        Mr. Shays. Let me ask you this, could State Department do
    this job?
        Mr. Edson. Yes, ultimately.
        Mr. Shays. And I think that is what their argument was
    originally. But we have imposed it on you.
        Now tell me, are we close to finally having an agreement
    that we are going to get them into the other four countries?
        Mr. Edson. Yes. And I think that having deployed
    additional--Saudi Arabia has its mission defined by statute so
    it's an unusual model. I think having deployed to those
    additional countries, that deployment will end up clarifying
    the mission significantly and will speed up the process down
    the road. I don't think that there will be quite as much delay
    in the future, certainly not in 2 years.
        Mr. Shays. Ms. Dezenski, tell me, what is the value added
    of the VSOs?
        Ms. Dezenski. Well, let me state the tremendous value I
    talked about how all of our officers have an average 15 years
    of law enforcement experience. So they come from a different
    background than a consular officer. We are talking about folks
    who have worked as port of entries, folks who have done
    numerous investigations, have spent time abroad working in an
    investigative capacity. It is a different function.
        Mr. Shays. Fair enough. You had answered that before and so
    we don't have a problem with you believing in this, is that
    correct?
        Ms. Dezenski. That's correct.
        Mr. Shays. OK, but we do have a problem with you not being
    forceful enough in getting them in there and that I think is
    true and if you do have pushback from State Department, besides
    going to your superiors and so on, I think you need to come to
    Congress and say we are getting the pushback and we will help
    push the other way.
        Maybe before going back to Mr. Van Hollen and then we will
    close up, here, Mr. Ford, Ambassador, would you tell me,
    candidly, did you see value in the VSO officers or is their
    value somewhat of a question?
        Mr. Ford. I can say, based on our observations in Saudi
    Arabia, yes, they did in fact add value there. And I think,
    again, I think it is important, this is linked to our other
    report, when we talk about the lack of enough experienced
    supervisory consular officials in several posts, one of which
    happens to be Saudi Arabia, having a law enforcement official
    there that has capability to and experience on law enforcement
    matters that State Department currently doesn't have, basically
    that is a value added, and every senior official we talked to
    in Saudi Arabia had that view.
        The real issue is whether or not you multiply that to the
    other 210 posts overseas, because some places are going to be
    different in terms of the environment, the workload and the
    other factors that go into making a decision about whether you
    really need a law enforcement person there or not.
        Mr. Shays. OK, Mr. Ambassador.
        Mr. Lange. Mr. Chairman, in a recent inspection report that
    we issued regarding a post in South Asia, we expressed some
    concern about a proposed VSO due to the lack of specificity in
    what the person would be doing and we thought it was important
    that there be a clarification of duties to avoid overlap with
    the Consular Section's Fraud Prevention Unit and the Assistant
    Regional Security Officer for Investigations.
        Mr. Shays. Describe to me the difference between the fraud
    out of the consular's office and VSOs? What is the difference?
        Mr. Lange. The RSO, regional security office----
        Mr. Shays. They are under State?
        Mr. Lange. They are under State. It is part of the Bureau
    of Diplomatic Security, and they look broadly at investigations
    which could be of locally hired employees, it could be of visa
    applicants and its broad connection and have very little close
    contacts with the local law enforcement authorities.
        The Fraud Prevention Unit is more focused on--and that is
    in the Consular Section that is under State. They are more
    focused on the specifics of the applicants who come in, the
    documents that come in, possibly false birth certificates,
    things such as that. And then they work closely with the RSO to
    utilize those contacts with the police authorities. And our
    recommendation in that report was to try to ensure that the VSO
    that was proposed for this post have a clarification what those
    duties are so there would be no overlap.
        Mr. Shays. Mr. Van Hollen.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And not to go over
    this ground too much, but let me just ask a question that
    really is raised, Mr. Ford, by your response, and it raises a
    question. You pointed out that in Saudi Arabia, one of the
    reasons the people you talked to said that Visa Security
    Officers were needed, one of the reasons you mentioned was
    because you didn't have enough mid-level consular officers,
    which raises of course the question of staffing of consular
    officers generally and if Ambassador Lange and others, Mr.
    Ford, others, you spoke to it in your testimony in part. But if
    you could just talk a little bit about to what extent we are
    short staffed in key posts with regard to consular officers
    because that is a separate issue. I think it is important in
    Saudi Arabia that someone is helping fill that vacuum. But that
    doesn't mean that we shouldn't be fully staffed in our other
    posts. Let's go back to the fact that this is right now one
    post. Even when expanded to five we still have hundreds, lots
    of countries left where it is going to be the consular officers
    and the consular officer is going to be on the front line, and
    they need to have the training so that, you know--where I have
    some trouble with all this testimony is the suggestion that,
    you know, when these guys aren't around that the State
    Department consular officer isn't in a position to adequately
    protect the national security interests of the United States
    because they don't have this training. So No. 1, we are going
    to need consular officers that have the training in all those
    other posts, unless we ultimately go to a model where in every
    post we have, you know, Visa Security Officers and consular
    officers. So that is one issue.
        And the other issue is the short staffing; in other words
    both the training of the consular officers, but also the
    staffing. If you could just speak as to the adequacy of our
    current staffing of consular officers overseas, what needs to
    be done to improve it, is this a money and resources issue, is
    this a priority allocation issue within the department? Is it
    all of the above? What do we need to do?
        Mr. Ford. I will start.
        I think this is, for us, this is probably the most
    important issue that we still think requires greater attention,
    particularly at the State Department.
        In the report we issued today, we cite that at the end of
    April the department was short about 26 percent of their mid-
    level positions, overall, in Consular Affairs sections.
        We visited Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and we found that at the
    time of our visit we didn't have supervisory staff there. We
    made a recommendation back in 2002 that the Department address
    a prioritized system of staffing to ensure that we had the
    right people in the right place.
        The Department has, in fact, hired more people, but they
    haven't really implemented the intent of what we called for 3
    years ago and we have called for again in today's report, and
    that is we believe that since they know they are going to have
    shortages in the supervisory ranks they need to come up with a
    plan that prioritizes posts overseas where the most senior
    experienced people should be assigned. And currently, they are
    basically operating the way they normally operate in the way
    they assign their staff, which does not really prioritize those
    positions.
        So that is what we would like the Department to do, is to
    reexamine and come up with a plan that basically over time says
    these are most critical posts that we need to have our most
    senior people there. So that is the issue. And they are hiring
    more people, and eventually somewhere down the road hopefully
    all the positions will be filled with the right people. But
    they are not there now.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Makes sense to me. Is that what State
    Department's plan is, to prioritize posts with respect to if
    you have a shortage of consular officers, make sure they are
    deployed to the places where you think is most important to
    have them?
        Mr. Edson. Certainly. When we were discussing this with GAO
    we were trying to discuss with them the sort of complexity of
    the overseas staffing situation. We have to prioritize the visa
    function in high security environments, obviously.
        We also have to make sure we have enough people on the
    ground to handle American citizens and be cognizant of the fact
    that there is no such thing as a nonstrategic visa. I mean,
    anywhere we issue a visa it can be misused. So we can't afford
    to let any post no matter how apparently tranquil go unfilled.
    That doesn't mean that the goal is 100 percent when we only
    have 80 percent of our mid-level people available for
    supervisory positions. But it is a balancing act from year to
    year. Sometimes if we have a particularly energetic or talented
    senior officer in a place it might make more sense to leave the
    mid-level position vacant and assign that person to somewhere
    else.
        We try to do our best. We do acknowledge that there is a
    need here that we need to be more careful in trying to fill the
    positions in places like Saudi Arabia in a more timely manner.
    Now most of them in Saudi Arabia and Cairo which were vacant at
    the time of the study are now filled.
        Mr. Shays. Just fairly quickly, I hope, when we send people
    overseas, do we have to declare them to the country involved,
    state what the job is? So would we declare that this person was
    a VSO officer? And I believe the answer is yes, correct?
        Mr. Edson. The answer is yes that they are declared. I
    would have to take the question in terms of degree of
    specificity that we declare their function.
        Mr. Shays. See, my sense is I am getting kind of sensitive
    to this but if the host country knows that we have a VSO
    officer, I would like to think that American citizens have a
    right to know. And I would make a request to State if they are
    not enthusiastic for VSOs and they are saying no, I would like
    them to reargue this case before Congress and have a meaningful
    debate about it. And I would make a request for State and DHS
    if they don't have the resources, don't tell the appropriator
    that you have everything you need to get the job done.
        I mean, I realize you probably don't go before the
    appropriators, but we are just not being told things that we
    need to be told in open discussion. And so I am certainly going
    to visit this issue, and this subcommittee will as well.
        Mr. Ford, Ambassador, tell us the best thing State is doing
    and the worst, and the best that DHS is doing and the worst.
        Mr. Ford. I think in terms of using the visa processes as a
    security tool, that from my perspective, the most important
    thing the Department has done is they've made it a priority,
    the State Department has made it a priority in overseas
    operations. When you go and talk to consular officials today
    overseas, and we visited 8 of them and we have contacted
    another 17, so we covered 25 in total--every place we met with
    people or talked to people it was clear that the visa process
    as a security device was critical to that mission.
        So I would say that is the most important thing, is that
    change in mindset at the Department of State with regard to
    ensuring that security is part of that process. So that is what
    I would see as being the best thing that has happened.
        I think they have done a lot of other things in regard to
    training, in regard to ensuring that their procedures are more
    clear to their people overseas. They have made enhancements in
    all of those areas, and we want to give them credit for that.
        Mr. Shays. What is their biggest weakness right now?
        Mr. Ford. The biggest weakness, in my view is the staffing
    issue we just talked about. I think at the end of the day we
    are talking about individuals that have to make a judgment as
    to whether a person is going to get a visa or not.
        Mr. Shays. And part of the problem with staffing of State
    is that we have underfunded them for a number of years. We lost
    a whole number of years of folks who could buildup in
    seniority. So we have this gap in leadership. But I am making
    the assumption that we are trying to fill that gap but now we
    have a lot more inexperienced folks at State.
        But I also want to say for the record, this subcommittee
    has responsibilities overseas. We oversee State and Defense and
    so on. We go to a lot of places. I have met some of the finest
    men and women working for the State Department. You are just an
    awesome group of people, and I am very appreciative of the work
    they do.
        Ambassador, what is the biggest strength of State and the
    biggest weakness? If it is different or the same, you can just
    tell me it is the same.
        Mr. Lange. In our perspective, the office of the Inspector
    General, the best improvements in addition to the culture
    change that could be the single most overriding issue that Mr.
    Ford mentioned, is the training. The consular training that is
    done by the Foreign Service Institute in cooperation with the
    Bureau of Consular Affairs has really been dramatically
    changed. The analytic interviewing, the involvement of the CIA
    to help on that, anti-terrorism, counterterrorism efforts, etc.
    That has really been a huge improvement and we detect that
    whenever we go out and visit embassies and consular officers
    explain to us what kind of experiences they have had and what
    kind of training.
        I think consistent with the view of the GAO is that the
    biggest problem is in the human resource area. And it is not
    that it is going badly, but that it needs to be monitored
    because it is a very complex issue, in part because of the
    issues that you raised, Mr. Chairman, regarding the influx of
    new junior officers that occurred over the last 4 or 5 years
    through what is called the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative to
    make up for the insufficient hiring in the 1990's. And as that
    bulge of new officers goes through the system, there will be
    more and more available at the mid-level with experience who
    will be able to fill these positions. But in this interim
    period, in a sense, there are some problems with junior
    officers filling jobs that really should be led by mid-level
    officers.
        Mr. Shays. DHS? Biggest strength, biggest weakness?
        Mr. Lange. In terms of us I will have to defer to the DHS
    on that one.
        Mr. Shays. Are you in a position to----
        Mr. Ford. Well, again, in the case of DHS----
        Mr. Shays. As it relates to?
        Mr. Ford. The Visa Security Officer program. Again our view
    is it is too early to tell what the overall value added of
    these officers will be. As we say in the report, we think that
    DHS should come up with an overall plan for how these people
    will be integrated overseas, and also they need to have better
    information about what the value added is. They need to be able
    to say that as a consequence of having these people we have
    more fraud cases, we are finding more bad people than we had
    before. They need to be able to demonstrate that having these
    people assigned overseas is actually going to make a meaningful
    difference in the overall security process, and right now they
    haven't got those metrics and we think they need to develop
    those. And they also need to develop them to convince the State
    Department that it is useful to have these people assigned.
        Mr. Shays. Right, OK. Mr. Edson, biggest strength, biggest
    weakness right now, State.
        Mr. Edson. Biggest strength----
        Mr. Shays. For your comfort level, I will just say biggest
    challenge, OK?
        Mr. Edson. Biggest challenge is staffing. It is not
    entirely in our hands. But both filling the mid-level gap in
    terms of people coming up through the ranks, a better way to
    address the fact that with the changes we have made to the visa
    process, we have definitely broadened the base of the pyramid.
    In terms of the requirement for more entry level people or
    lower level visa adjudicators, is now, real and continuing. It
    will be with us forever. So I think we have created a dynamic
    that will probably result in imbalances in the personnel system
    on an ongoing basis, and we need to figure out how to----
        Mr. Shays. Let me say, Congress did that. I mean, we
    underfunded, at a point, we allowed you not to hire certain
    people that created this imbalance of----
        Mr. Edson. In addition, I am thinking in terms of things
    like the interview requirements and the biometric collection
    requirements which we are right now doing with consular
    officers, you just--we have created a requirement for a broader
    base of lower level visa officers on an ongoing basis, and we
    need to deal with that.
        Mr. Shays. Ms. Dezenski.
        Ms. Dezenski. Our biggest challenge is breaking through the
    NSDD process. It has to move more quickly. We need to speed up
    the deployment of our folks. They are trained and ready to go.
    We won't have meaningful performance metrics unless we have
    more people to develop those metrics.
        Mr. Shays. You're understaffed to develop those?
        Ms. Dezenski. I think that we are going to have a hard time
    putting performance metrics together if we don't have more
    locations to add into those performance metrics.
        Mr. Shays. But I got the sense from what you were saying
    that you don't have the staff to start to develop those metrics
    and so on?
        Ms. Dezenski. I think we do have the staff ready to develop
    that. The issue is getting our people deployed.
        Mr. Shays. OK. Well, you know, some of that fight maybe
    needs to be a little more public and you need to involve
    Congress in this process. OMB is not a dictatorship. It may
    seem like it is. But if OMB decides what you're allowed to say
    before a committee, you're going to have misinformed Members of
    Congress and we will not provide the resources where they are
    needed. And there needs to be a little more faith that if we
    have some knowledge that it will benefit you all. And it is not
    being disloyal telling us where these issues of disagreement
    are. It is what makes our job interesting.
        Is there anything that you need to put on the record before
    we get to the next panel? Is there any statement you want to
    clarify or correct from someone else or whatever, any question
    that you wish we had asked that we should have asked that would
    have made this a better hearing?
        Ms. Dezenski. Sir, I would like to add a couple comments to
    the record. I have a great staff behind me. They have fed me
    some good statistics that I would like to note for the record.
    The first is that we want to note that the Ambassador in Saudi
    Arabia has actually asked us to increase our staff. We think
    that is one of the best examples of the efficacy of what we are
    doing.
        I have mentioned we had started the process on the NSDDs in
    2003. That is true for Saudi Arabia, but the four additional
    countries were submitted in June 2004. I wanted to make sure
    that was understood. And in terms of revealing where we have
    VSO officers, the main reason that we are quiet about it is
    because we don't what visa applicants moving to the next
    available post because they know they won't have to go through
    that scrutiny.
        Mr. Shays. OK, well, I congratulate your staff on good
    staff work. But I would say that we could make a list of 15 or
    so countries where you need to have folks. And the sooner we
    get that done the better. Or State Department needs to be
    making sure they are doing what the VSO folks would be doing.
    You all are good people. I thank you for your service to your
    country, and I thank you for participating in this hearing.
    Thank you very much.
        Our next and final panel is the Honorable Clark Kent Ervin,
    Director of Homeland Security Initiative, Aspen Institute; Dr.
    James J. Carafano, senior fellow of Heritage Foundation; Ms.
    Susan Ginsburg, former senior counsel, National Commission on
    Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, what is in fact the
    9/11 Commission; and Mr. John Daniel Morris, retired Consul
    General, U.S. Mission to Beijing, China.
        [Witnesses sworn.]

      STATEMENTS OF CLARK KENT ERVIN, DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY
      INITIATIVE, ASPEN INSTITUTE; DR. JAMES J. CARAFANO, SENIOR
    FELLOW, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION; SUSAN GINSBURG, FORMER SENIOR
      COUNSEL, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE
     UNITED STATES (THE 9/11 COMMISSION); AND JOHN DANIEL MORRIS,
         RETIRED CONSUL GENERAL, U.S. MISSION TO BEIJING, CHINA

                     STATEMENT OF CLARK KENT ERVIN

        Mr. Ervin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Van
    Hollen. Thank you very much for inviting me to testify today on
    this critically important topic of whether 4 years after
    September 11th security gaps remain in our visa policy that can
    be exploited by terrorists.
        There is no question but that it is harder than ever before
    for terrorists to get a visa into the United States. Before
    September 11th, it was relatively easy. Back then, even though
    the law required State Department officers to interview visa
    applicants, this legal requirement, as you know, was routinely
    waived. The waivers were to be exceptional and interviewing
    applicants was to be the norm. In practice the reverse was
    true. Indeed, as we heard, when an interview was granted, it
    was usually for the purpose of giving an applicant, who had
    already been rejected on a first documentary review, a second
    chance to convince the State Department that he should be
    admitted to our country. And we all know now about the
    notorious visa express program in Saudi Arabia and like
    programs elsewhere that allowed third parties in foreign
    countries to review visa applications on the State Department's
    behalf.
        Further, State consular officers had limited access to
    information and other government agencies' data bases,
    indicating whether a given applicant might be a terrorist.
    There was nothing in the State Department's CLASS data base
    indicating that any of the September 11th hijackers was a
    terrorist, but there was information in other agencies' data
    bases that had that information been shared in a timely fashion
    with State those terrorists might never have gained entry into
    our country.
        Fortunately, nowadays there are no visa express programs,
    most applicants are interviewed, consular officers are better
    trained to spot terrorists and signs of fraud. The CLASS data
    base contains 21 million records of known or suspected
    terrorists and other people who for some reason are ineligible
    for visas, nearly triple the number prior to the attacks, and
    about 70 percent of the data base is based on information
    passed to the State Department by the FBI, the CIA and other
    law enforcement intelligence agencies. So information sharing
    among relevant agencies is much better than it was 4 years ago.
        But I want to focus my remarks on the issue that you
    focused most on, Mr. Chairman, and that is the whole Visa
    Security Officer program.
        Gaps remain in the visa process that terrorists could
    easily exploit to readily effect. First of all, and most
    importantly, and I will leave the rest of my remarks for the
    printed record, the Visa Security Officer program provided for
    in the Homeland Security Act has not lived up to its promise.
    Since 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, this
    provision, as you know, mandated the stationing of Homeland
    Security officers in Saudi Arabia to oversee State's
    administration of the visa issuance process to ensure that no
    more visas are issued to terrorists, at least from that
    country.
        The DHS officers sent were presumably to be experts in
    counterterrorism, fraud detection, interview techniques and
    other relevant areas. The provision, as you noted, went on to
    say that Visa Security Officers should be dispatched to every
    visa issuing post in the world, unless the Secretary of
    Homeland Security can explain why stationing such officers in a
    given country would not contribute to homeland security.
        When I looked into the VSO program last year as the then
    Inspector General of Homeland Security, we found that it was
    not making much of a difference in Saudi Arabia. There were no
    designated VSO slots, the positions were filled by volunteers,
    and the volunteers were serving only on a temporary basis,
    resulting in a rapid turnover of personnel. I think the average
    was about 7 months at the time. And the temporary volunteers
    were lacking in the basic skills they needed to be effective.
    For example, one officer had no law enforcement experience.
    Another had never worked outside the United States.
        Mr. Shays. I don't usually interrupt someone who is
    testifying but when you say volunteers, that has a whole
    meaning to me. Are you saying someone from DHS who volunteered?
        Mr. Ervin. That's right. Another had never worked outside
    of the United States and as a result he had no idea how an
    embassy works. Another had no knowledge of the visa process.
    And only 1 of the 10 spoke Arabic. Even though the DHS and
    State Department officers were located just a few feet from
    each other, neither could then access the other's data bases,
    so both were inputting and then sending back to Washington for
    a fuller background check essentially the same information. As
    a consequence, precious time was being wasted by State
    Department, the Department of Homeland Security, their
    respective headquarters, and other key members of the U.S. law
    enforcement, intelligence communities, leaving the VSOs little
    time to do what they were supposedly uniquely competent to do,
    review visa applications strictly from a counterterrorism
    perspective.
        There have been some advances in the VSO program in Saudi
    Arabia since then. As for the temporary what I call volunteer
    turnover problem, according to the GAO as you heard, DHS has
    hired and trained four permanent employees and deployed them to
    Saudi Arabia in June, and they are to stay there for a 1-year
    period. As for language ability, two of the four reportedly
    speak Arabic. I understand from other sources that the VSOs are
    no longer wasting time inputting the same data and transmitting
    it to Washington that consular officers at post had already
    input. But as you have heard, while there is anecdotal evidence
    that VSOs have helped to keep terrorists outside of the United
    States there is no hard and fast evidence of that because DHS
    has not kept track of any data that might shed light on it.
        More troubling to me and indeed most troubling to me is
    that the program, as you indicated, Mr. Chairman, has yet to be
    expanded to any country other than Saudi Arabia. If VSOs are
    such an effective counterterrorism tool, if they have expertise
    and access to information that State consular officers don't
    have, it is critical that they be deployed to every visa
    issuing post throughout the world as quickly as possible,
    otherwise terrorists could slip into the country by obtaining a
    visa in any of the other nearly 200 countries with which the
    United States maintains diplomatic relations.
        While DHS, as you heard, intends to add five posts this
    fiscal year, this fiscal year is nearly over. And as you heard,
    VSOs have yet to be deployed to any of them.
        While DHS intends to expand the program at the rate of five
    posts a year, this is troubling because at that rate it will
    take about 40 years for VSOs to be deployed worldwide, giving
    terrorists plenty of time to apply for a visa from countries
    lacking putative protections of the program.
        And I will close with this final paragraph. In my judgment
    we should make VSOs as effective as possible. They should in
    fact be expert in counterterrorism, fraud detection, interview
    techniques and the like. They should have country and area
    expertise and they should all be proficient in the local
    language, and then they should be deployed throughout the
    world. We should not allow the State Department to exercise an
    effective veto over the expansion of a program by subjecting
    this program to the NSDD 38 chief admission authority process
    by which our Ambassadors, as you have heard, are in power to
    approve or deny other agencies' requests to have representation
    in the embassy. This process may be acceptable for the
    Agriculture Department. It is not acceptable for the Department
    of Homeland Security.
        After all, as you noted, Mr. Chairman, a compromise was
    reached between State and DHS to allow State to continue to
    process visa applications and to issue visas only on the
    understanding that DHS would have the final say on visa
    issuance. The fear was that absent the strong hand of a
    department focused exclusively on counterterrorism, the more
    diplomacy oriented State Department might revert to a mindset
    that focuses more on diplomacy and customer service than
    counterterrorism.
        I will stop there and be happy to take your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Ervin follows:]

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        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3853.047

        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
        Dr. Carafano.

                     STATEMENT OF JAMES J. CARAFANO

        Dr. Carafano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I want to
    applaud this subcommittee on holding these hearings. I would
    argue that in the area of interdicting terrorism travel this
    needs to absolutely be our No. 1 national priority and there is
    a lot of discussion about dealing with illegal entry to the
    United States and making the border safer. And while I would
    agree that is important, quite frankly we know that virtually
    every known terrorist that has come into the United States has
    used some form of travel document. And this is simply the No. 1
    way terrorists seek to exploit every way to get into this
    country. But this is simply the No. 1 way, and this simply
    needs to be our No. 1 priority in this area.
        The one comment I would make is that as we look at those
    programs and assess since September 11th I really think we need
    to be sober in our expectations. If we really want to make
    progress in this area, we have to have realistic deadlines. We
    have to have adequate resources. We have to have adequate human
    capital programs. We have to have clear standards, we have to
    have credible measures of performance and we have to have
    integrated ID programs and if you want to know why things
    aren't working better you can look across all those areas and
    get the answer.
        I agree with Clark. Things are absolutely much better than
    they were before September 11th. I don't think that is
    disputable. One of the most important recent developments in my
    mind is the second stage review by Secretary Chertoff and the
    Department of Homeland Security and two critical decisions he
    has made. One is to create an Under Secretary for Policy and to
    elevate the International Affairs Office into that office and
    give it overall responsibility. I think one of the things that
    has really hamstrung DHS since the start is that it hasn't had
    a coordinated, integrated approach to its international affairs
    and it hasn't had a high level person directing overall policy
    integration in the Department. That is critical. I think
    establishing a Chief Information Officer and breaking him away
    from the IAIP and focusing just on intelligence and just on the
    issue of intelligence is absolutely critical. And if there is
    one recommendation I would make to the Congress, it is to be
    fully supportive of the Secretary's organizational changes that
    he proposed in the second stage review.
        I think here is what we can say we have learned over the
    last 4 years and that making progress has been incredibly
    difficult, very costly and very problematic. So what I would
    really like to direct this subcommittee's attention to is I
    thing we ought to go back and ask a fundamental question, is
    knowing that making progress in the existing system is so
    difficult and so costly, we should really ask ourselves do we
    want to continue on this course or do we simply want a new and
    different paradigm and do things very, very differently.
        I think terrorism is a long-term problem. The terrorists
    aren't going anywhere. It took 5 years to plan September 11th,
    it took 3 years to plan Madrid. This is going to be an endemic
    problem in the 21st century. I think we should take our time
    and build a system and get it right, and staying with a legacy
    system, which we know fixing it and making it better is very,
    very difficult, may not be the right--we may not have made the
    right policy choice in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
        I would argue that we take a different course. I think it
    makes no sense to divide major responsibilities between three
    major departments. I would consolidate them all in one, and I
    would argue that should be the Department of Homeland Security
    and then----
        Mr. Shays. Three major responsibilities being----
        Dr. Carafano. Justice, Department of Homeland Security,
    Department of State.
        And I would argue that we go back and start with a blank
    sheet of paper and envision a new program or new system on how
    we want people to come in and exit this country in the 21st
    century.
        And I will end by commenting on two things that I think
    should be an important part of that strategy. One is the Visa
    Waiver Program, and I would simply argue as a matter of
    strategy that this is the right solution. If you can get
    countries into the Visa Waiver Program and have a degree of due
    diligence that they are operating with the same due diligence
    that we are, you do two things. One is you build more
    geostrategic partnerships, and there are lots of countries that
    we want to be open and be stronger partners with. And the
    second one is you take an enormous amount of resources and then
    you can then shift them to other States that aren't meeting
    that same level of due diligence.
        And the second point I make is we really need the
    equivalent of the Military War College's National Defense
    University. We really need a Homeland Security University that
    brings together these mid-level people in the State Department
    and Justice and Homeland Security to really have them in an
    academic environment, to really think deeply about these
    challenges. And one of them should be terrorist travel. There
    should be an entire academic environment for these mid-level
    people to sit together and deep think about this issue. So I
    really think we do need some kind of equivalent to the War
    College experience for our future leaders in these three
    departments. And one of the core pieces of that curriculum--not
    something in the Consular School, not something that is an add-
    on course, not Tuesdays instruction, but a serious intellectual
    development. As warfighters think about how to conduct a
    campaign, people in these other agencies should be thinking
    about how to fight terrorism.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Carafano follows:]

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        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3853.056

        Mr. Shays. Thank you. Is there any model of any school
    somewhere else? Any country has a school on homeland security?
        Dr. Carafano. No.
        Mr. Shays. It would be kind of like Newt Gingrich thinking
    out of the box here?
        Dr. Carafano. Yes.
        Mr. Shays. Ms. Ginsburg.
        Ms. Ginsburg. Mr. Chairman----
        Mr. Shays. That is the mic that has the least
    amplification. If you want to pull it closer to you.

                      STATEMENT OF SUSAN GINSBURG

        Ms. Ginsburg. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Van Hollen. It is a
    privilege to appear before the subcommittee which has
    maintained a consistent focus on the visa process since
    September 11th and acted as a force for its continual
    improvement.
        Let me first summarize the GAO's key findings as follows.
    The visa process must serve simultaneously as an anti-terrorism
    tool and as a facilitator of legitimate travel. Consulates are
    still understaffed in numbers, expertise and experience levels.
    Counterterrorism and counterfraud tools are improved but not
    optimal and DHS's practical contribution to the visa process
    remains unclear.
        Each of these points calls for comments from a
    counterterrorism perspective.
        The visa process as an anti-terrorism tool. Visa offices
    are crucial screening points for the defensive blocking of
    dangerous individuals. Offensively, they help detect and
    counter terrorist operations and help counter the criminal
    infrastructure for illegal immigration, which also contributes
    to terrorist mobility.
        All terrorist groups have to execute certain basic
    functions: Making decisions, communicating, recruiting,
    training, raising and distributing money, and moving people and
    material. Each facet presents a potential vulnerability.
        Terrorist mobility, the need to move people, is central.
    When terrorists need to cross sovereign borders for any of
    their critical functions, their vulnerabilities and our
    opportunities for detecting them are greater.
        The mobility function offers opportunities for designing
    new offensive and defensive measures. We can create new types
    of information based on it, use it as points of attack or make
    it more difficult to carry out, especially secretly. Yet
    terrorist mobility has received significantly less attention
    than it demands. The visa process is central to this new field
    of terrorist mobility. The visa office is a key location where
    we have the opportunity to detect and intercept terrorists, or
    at least ensure that they leave a footprint.
        This footprint can contribute to a larger analytic effort
    by consular offices and others. This information will become
    relevant later when a new crew allows visa data base
    information to be read as the record of terrorist passage. With
    other information, it can reveal patterns and trends and speed
    the design of new countermeasures.
        Visa offices, consulates and embassies are also critical
    locations for crime control. Visa officers gain access to
    information that can lead to detecting false personas and
    fraudulent travel in supporting documents. When analyzed, this
    information will allow investigators, intelligence officials
    and diplomats to take actions against the sources of those
    illegal travel tactics.
        This includes penetration of criminal networks, preemption
    and deterrence. Visa offices must take an increasingly
    significant role in crime control against such illegal travel
    practices and organizations. This role adds a new dimension of
    importance to the personnel and practices dedicated to this
    function.
        Lack of trained personnel is unacceptable at a time when
    consulate affairs has a critical national security role in
    countering terrorist mobility. I do not believe that role can
    be transferred to the DHS. The GAO reports significant growth
    in visa office staffing, but also presents a troubling picture
    of supervisory positions filled by entry level officers,
    shortages, and language training deficiencies.
        Consular offices are transit points which force terrorists
    to surface and confront governmental authorities. There must be
    people in place with experience in the region so that they are
    better able to read the clues presented by the people in front
    of them and to devise systems to improve information gathering.
        The Intelligence Reform Act recommended additional consular
    officers. Until this occurs there should of course be a process
    for establishing priorities for filling posts critical to
    national security.
        Part of the good news in the GAO report is that the State
    Department is currently developing distance learning courses in
    the areas of fraud prevention and terrorist mobility. This is a
    good beginning as long as they are mandatory requirements. Once
    the courses are distributed, consular officers must determine
    whether they are adequate and what modifications are needed.
        Two other points about counterterrorism are important.
    First, each post's officers must have a thorough understanding
    of the role of that geographic area in terrorist mobility and
    in the criminal infrastructure for illegal migration. This
    probably means developing specialists at posts for this
    purpose. These specialists would have a career path that
    reflected their role such as cross-service in the intelligence
    community and at ports of entry.
        At present there appear to be at least 25 visa fraud
    investigators deployed, but no specialists in terrorist
    mobility. Only specialized knowledge, however, allows visa
    fraud to be recognized as terrorist related, and it does not
    appear that the ability to make these assessments is a
    mandatory requirement for any of the fraud investigators.
        Second, there still appears to be insufficient focus on
    travel and supporting documents as a means of detecting
    terrorists. As you know, the 9/11 Commission found that 15 of
    the 19 hijackers were potentially detectable as terrorists by
    documentary indicators.
        Information relating to potential terrorists' travel
    documents is extensive, detailed and ever changing. Rather than
    making information available only by classified computer, a
    better approach would be to automate it.
        Currently, there are no electronic screening of passport
    books themselves and of accompanying documents; in other words,
    they look at the passport. It doesn't go through any kind of
    machine that can read it using technology. This can be done to
    determine authenticity, to detect adulteration and terrorist
    and criminal indicators. Yet this capability exists and can be
    further augmented.
        The goal should be electronic screening of foreign
    passports and identification documents using these kinds of
    algorithms. One dimension of a terrorist mobility specialist
    job should be expertise and documentary indicators just as
    there are forensic passport specialists today who supply the
    Nation with expertise on fraudulent passports generally.
        Improved fraud detection through interviews with visa
    applicants and scrutiny of their documentation is a critical
    dimension of countering terrorist mobility, of crime control
    and immigration management. Once fraud of any kind is detected,
    there must be an additional effort to detect any links to
    terrorism or to a criminal organization that may have links
    with terrorists.
        According to the GAO, what consular officers are requesting
    are better counterterrorism tools and training. The basic truth
    here is that DHS personnel from ICE or CBP do not have any
    greater expertise in terrorist mobility than consular affairs
    officers. The experiment of having DHS visa security officers
    perform this role for which they are no better equipped than
    the personnel at the State Department should end. Instead,
    there should be a focus on what functions DHS officers must
    fulfill overseas themselves to counter terrorist mobility.
        Consideration should be given to building up at least two
    important roles to supplement the visa function overseas:
    First, a serious program to staff airport embarkation points
    with DHS officers. That's a gap, especially for Visa waiver
    program countries.
        Second, the creation of a team of agents from ICE,
    Diplomatic Security and FBI to assist foreign law enforcement
    organizations in major cases against criminal travel
    facilitation organizations.
        To conclude, the visa process is essential to counter
    terrorism, to crime control and to immigration management,
    including the facilitation of legitimate travel fundamental to
    our commitment to freedom and to our economic well being. Until
    visa officers and other border control points are seen as
    central contributors to counterterrorism, at least as important
    as the FBI, the intelligence community and the military, their
    opportunities to combat terrorism will not be maximized. Visa
    offices need to become hybrid hubs for counterterrorism, crime
    control and immigration fraud expertise.
        To achieve this goal, more personnel, greater
    specialization, new technology tools and cross-training and
    cross-service among the relevant agencies are required.
        The work of this subcommittee, highlighted today by
    analysis of the GAO report you commissioned continues to be a
    source of innovation and excellence. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Ginsburg follows:]

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        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Morris.

                    STATEMENT OF JOHN DANIEL MORRIS

        Mr. Morris. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity
    today to present my comments on post-September 11th U.S. visa
    procedures from the perspective of a consular officer in the
    field.
        As you know, I recently completed a 3-year assignment as
    Consul General in Beijing. I am now retired from U.S.
    Government after a number of years in the Foreign Service,
    primarily in consular work. In the course of my career, I saw
    many changes in visa work. As the world became more and more
    interconnected, demand for U.S. visas accelerated exponentially
    and technological innovations were introduced to try to help
    keep pace with efficiency and security needs.
        As I returned to consular work in the summer of 2002,
    following a period working in other Foreign Service areas of
    responsibility, it was evident the Department of State was in
    the midst of the biggest change regarding visas I had
    experienced. First, Secretary Powell had set out clear policy
    guidance that security is the No. 1 consideration in visa
    processing. While self-evident, that reality had become blurred
    in the course of two decades of declining resources and visa
    work in relation to the growing work demands and amidst policy
    admonitions to consular officers to find ways to do more with
    less due to budget constraints. Secretary Powell's definitive
    statement has since been a watchword to all of us in the field
    as we are trying to carry out those changes.
        Second, Consular Affairs Assistant Secretary Maura Harty
    put forth a series of detailed guidelines and instructions for
    officers in the field to ensure that the Secretary's policies
    would be carried out. These were very helpful to posts in
    sorting through all of their priorities and managing their
    workloads.
        Third, bolstered by Secretary Powell's Diplomatic Readiness
    Initiative, which increased Foreign Service officer intake, the
    Department endeavored to provide sufficient personnel to posts
    to enable them to actually carry out their responsibilities
    fully.
        As a consular officer, I saw that it was the first time in
    at least a decade that I experienced replacement visa interview
    officers beginning to arrive as the officers departed on
    reassignment without lengthy staffing gaps. But staffing was
    then and still is insufficient in many consular sections
    abroad, as you have heard already today.
        In China, we discovered precisely some of the things we
    have been talking about today, including, particularly, a
    shortfall in the mid-level consular supervisors. And this is,
    as you know, an echo from the drastic cutbacks in the intake of
    Foreign Service officers in the nineties. This put a lot more
    responsibility than was desirable in the hands of very talented
    but inexperienced officers in China.
        The officers conducting visa interviews around the world
    today are highly motivated and intelligent and language
    capable, very aware of their important role in the front line
    of America's defense. They're also very hard pressed to handle
    growing workloads of administering new security procedures
    which cumulatively slow down the visa process considerably.
        From the post perspective I believe the State Department
    policymakers have tried very hard to improve visa security
    procedures since 2001 and have made many significant
    improvements, among these the inclusion of substantially more
    names of potentially dangerous individuals in our lookout
    systems and success in the biometric registration or
    fingerprinting of virtually all visa applicants. Some other
    measures were not as carefully thought through, however, and
    have had the unintended effect of sending out an unwelcoming
    message to the rest of the world without adding significantly
    necessarily to the security equation.
        I provided one example of this in my written statement
    whereby security advisory opinion procedures directed primarily
    against terrorism had the side result of stifling U.S.-China
    academic exchange in the sciences. Where they can be identified
    these sorts of measures need to be reviewed and modified and
    new security initiatives should be carefully considered,
    focused on concrete objectives, and take into account the views
    of embassies and consular officers in the field where the
    policies meet reality.
        Finally and most importantly, as alluded to many times
    today, it is critical that serious stock be taken by all
    concerned in the visa process of present and future needs for
    consular resources, especially staff and facilities.
        I will be happy to respond to any questions you might have
    on these matters.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. All your statements will be
    included in the record in their full form. Mr. Van Hollen.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Morris follows:]

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        Mr. Van Hollen. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all
    for your testimony this afternoon on this very important issue,
    and, you know, listening, we all agree with the mission, which
    is that these people on the front lines should be protecting
    our security, No. 1, but also making sure that legitimate
    travelers get here. But as I listen to you there are at least
    three different proposals with respect to the question of the
    visa security officers as I hear it. And I don't have a dog in
    this fight. I wasn't here, I don't think, when Congress created
    the Visa Security Office, so I'm just trying to listen to
    figure out what makes the best sense in organizational policy.
    And I listened to Mr. Ervin, who said let's continue along this
    path and expand visa security officers to every--should be
    deployed throughout the world, so you have the consular
    officers and next to them you have the visa security officers
    throughout the world.
        As I understand Dr. Carafano's testimony, your long-term
    solution would be essentially to take the Consular Affairs away
    from the State Department and place it in Diplomatic Security
    Department. I mean not diplomatic security, excuse me. DHS. And
    Ms. Ginsburg, you're suggesting that this has been essentially
    a failed experiment, that the evidence to date suggests that
    these security officers don't have a lot more training than the
    consular officer and maybe we should end that experiment, put
    the homeland security folks, deploy them in other areas in
    terms of disrupting travel patterns, terrorist travel patterns
    and essentially, as I understand it, allow the consular officer
    to take on that expertise. And I understand, Mr. Morris, I'll
    even say you seem to be closest to Ms. Ginsburg. I wasn't sure.
        So you sort of have these different options out there. And
    just looking at the situation as we see it today, noting that
    we only have visa security officers in one country right now,
    the delay in the expansion and the idea that we do want to make
    sure that at the end of the day, although there are obviously
    higher risk posts, that at the end of the day we want to make
    sure that there's no weakness in the system. We do want this
    emphasis on security or security to be a paramount concern
    everywhere. It seems to me that it does make sense to have one,
    maybe one department in charge, except for Mr. Ervin's point is
    the different institutional sort of mandates where you have
    homeland security maybe focused more on security issues as
    opposed to diplomacy issues would be a counter to that.
        That's all by way of suggesting that as I understood the
    testimony of the Government Accountability Office, Mr. Ford, he
    said that one of the main changes that he has seen with respect
    to the consular officers overseas, as echoed by Mr. Morris, is
    that people understand now that security should be the
    paramount concern and that should be the one focus. Given that,
    why doesn't it make sense, and given the fact that we already
    have the Consular Affairs within the Department of State, why
    doesn't it make sense to make sure that the consular officers
    who are on the front line get the training they need? They're
    already deployed to every consulate around the world. Why don't
    we make sure they get the training they need to develop
    whatever expertise that we want these visa security officers to
    have? Sounds like they don't necessarily have it right now. And
    we already have a sort of a deployment mechanism. Let's give
    them the expertise and the tools to do their job and let's get
    the staffing problem, which we all, everyone on the last panel
    said that was the primary issue, and yet we sort of move over
    it because, yes, that means resources and all that. But why not
    look at the model that we've got and beef up the training so
    that every consular officer overseas has the training
    necessary?
        Mr. Ervin. May I answer that first?
        Mr. Van Hollen. Yes.
        Mr. Ervin. Well certainly, Mr. Van Hollen, I think that all
    the State Department consular officers should have that kind of
    counterterrorism training, and as you say and as we heard,
    apparently more and more of them do all the time and certainly
    that's a step in the right direction. I think all of them
    should just as quickly as possible. But I'm just afraid that at
    the end of the day, there is an institutional mindset
    necessarily, and I don't think that--that's not a normative
    statement on my part. I just think that the State Department
    tends to focus on diplomacy and customer service.
        The whole theory behind the Department of Homeland Security
    is that there should be a department that is exclusively
    focused on counterterrorism. And of course implicit in what I
    was saying is the notion that these DHS officers actually be
    qualified to do work in the counterterrorism area to the extent
    there are DHS officers, VSOs who aren't qualified, and as I
    said, when I looked into the program last year as Inspector
    General, many of them were not. But this presumes that they
    will be. But I'm just afraid that if we're not careful, as the
    months and years go by without another attack and unless
    there's some huge increase in funding for the State Department,
    the institutional pressure to revert to form, to revert to
    focus on diplomacy will mean that we will be back years from
    now where we were before September 11th. If it were up to me,
    if this were tabla raza I frankly was supportive of the notion
    of giving the entire visa function wholesale to a Department of
    Homeland Security, a competent Department of Homeland Security.
    But as a practical matter that's not happened. I can't envisage
    that it will happen.
        That being so, this present structure is the one that we're
    going to have to live with. And if that's the case it seems to
    me VSOs need to be effective and they need to be deployed
    throughout the world.
        Dr. Carafano. Putting aside the issue of which department
    it should be, I would make the argument that it all needs to be
    in one department based on a very simple premise. Whether it's
    visa issuance or border entry, exit, the basic functions to be
    performed are exactly the same that you need, preliminary
    screening, secondary screening and investigation. My notion is
    any time you split those apart you've created a seam that
    doesn't need to be there and you create potential problems.
    This is like the police department in which the beat cop and
    the homicide investigator are in totally separate agencies. I
    mean, we don't do that. It's integrated. And so you want to
    have the guy that's doing the primary screening, or woman, and
    the secondary screening and doing the investigations that back
    that up all in one, all work for one person.
        You could put this to the test and say--and we could debate
    and argue, make the arguments why one versus the other. But I
    think if we want to move forward, rather than trying to create
    seams that don't need to be there, we need to focus all this so
    the person can make the intelligent decisions about IT
    integration, human capital programs, resources, infrastructure.
    Any time you have two people making decisions on those things
    you've guaranteed that it's going to take five times as long
    and cost 10 times as much.
        Ms. Ginsburg. Well, my comment would be that we have in the
    State Department now diplomatic security agents who are gun
    carrying investigators who refer cases to the U.S. attorneys
    and that they are fully capable of carrying out the same kinds
    of activities that are being outlined for the visa security
    officers, the analysis, the review of the trends, the regional
    expertise, the training of people like airline officials. All
    of those functions outlined by the witness from DHS are, in
    fact, what needs to be done. But in the 2 years that these
    people haven't been deployed, they haven't been deployed
    because there isn't that bench of expertise that the new
    security circumstances demand. There is a function in the State
    Department that can be expanded to meet this need and there's
    an intelligence function in the State Department that's very
    well regarded. And there's a deep knowledge already of
    immigration and criminal fraud matters relating to passports
    and visas, which is precisely the expertise that you need
    overseas. I would argue that needs to be expanded, the function
    of the diplomatic security, the function of units like the--I
    think it is called the Vulnerability Assessment Unit in
    Consular Affairs, which is a new analytic unit to take the data
    in the consular data bases and create algorithms that help, you
    know, predict where there are problems, and that we need to do
    much more to support those functions, including for
    investigations conducted by foreign governments of human
    smuggling organizations, major document forgers who are
    supplying and the people who are then showing up at consulates
    and looking for visas. And those teams can be integrated teams
    with people from ICE and CBP, FBI, but there is no need to
    shift this function when you have within the State Department a
    fully capable diplomatic security service, which should indeed
    be involved more deeply with the consulates in looking at the
    visas. They can have full access to the NCIC data which we
    haven't discussed much today, which is one of the trouble
    spots. They're fully qualified to review that data and there's
    no reason why they shouldn't be doing that. And indeed, one of
    the problems was that the visa security officer hasn't been
    able to define a role that's any different from what the
    diplomatic security officer can perform.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Just to sum up, I understand each of your
    testimony was if you had your wish, this function would be in
    one department. I mean, you might differ on which department it
    should be in, but just organizationally, it makes sense to put
    this under one department and get rid of these two people
    sitting side by side with really very much the same mission at
    the end of the day.
        I thank you. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have some other
    questions, but after----
        Mr. Shays. No, no, no. Keep going.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Well, let me just ask with respect to the
    waiver program because, you know, there's no doubt ideally that
    if you can be assured that the processes and protections that
    are in place in each of these 27 countries are perfect, that
    obviously that's the best way to assure security in the sense
    that, you know, if you could be 100 percent guaranteed. But
    that of course depends on us, you know, relying on the systems
    that are put in place by these 27 countries, and if the list
    expands more than that number of countries. And at least
    within, in terms of your ability to travel within at least some
    of these 27 countries within the European Community, you know
    you get issued your travel documents in one country, you can
    travel freely within the European Community and get on an
    airplane anywhere you want. I guess the question is as we focus
    so much today on our consular officers, are we focused enough
    on, and have we put the time into really reviewing the security
    measures that are in place in the waiver countries? And I ask
    this question not because I think that, you know, we need to
    clamp down. I really, I don't know the answer to the question.
    I know you have all probably looked at that question. But it
    seems to me it'd be a mistake to focus all our resources and
    attention on closing a barn door in one place while it was wide
    open somewhere else. So if you could all respond to that
    question.
        Mr. Ervin. If I could start on that, Mr. Van Hollen, I
    looked at the security implications of the visa waiver program
    also when I was the Inspector General of Homeland Security and
    I'm concerned about the visa waiver program. One of the things
    that we recommended in that report was the U.S. Visit system be
    applied to visa waiver countries and frankly the Department of
    Homeland Security was slow to do that. We recommended that I
    think in April 2004. It actually wasn't done until the end of
    the year and the Department has acknowledged that there are
    likely terrorists who would not have been caught had U.S. Visit
    not been applied to travelers from those visa waiver countries.
    It's not for nothing, for example, that Zacharias Moussaoui,
    the alleged 20th hijacker, came on a French passport, that
    Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, came on a British passport, etc.
    So it's very important.
        Second, as you suggest, we learned when I was the Inspector
    General of Homeland Security that there wasn't sufficient
    oversight on the part of the Department of Homeland Security of
    the bona fides of the countries participating in the program.
    There wasn't the kind of regular review that is required to
    make sure that countries merit their continued participation in
    the visa waiver program.
        The final comment I'd make, even though now, fortunately,
    the U.S. Visit system is applied to visa waiver countries,
    there's still no way to match the biometrics of the travelers
    from the visa waiver countries with those of the applicant at
    the consulate because of course the visa waiver travelers did
    not apply at consulates. They did not have to obtain a visa. So
    it is a--there's a potential security gap there, needless to
    say, and certainly I would not expand the program.
        Dr. Carafano. Well, of course Clark and I disagree on this.
    My first comment would be that one of the key criteria that no
    one's mentioned is reciprocity. Every country that we give visa
    waiver status gives visa waiver status to us and they're also
    depending on us to keep terrorists from getting passports. And
    you know, we can ask can the United States guarantee that we
    are never going to give a passport to a terrorist, and the
    answer is probably no.
        I agree with Clark that the visa waiver program was created
    before terrorism was a major issue and that we should look at
    mechanisms to strengthen the program, to add in criteria for
    terrorism, to add in means of oversight. But I think the last
    thing we want to do is to abolish it and I would argue we need
    to extend it, and for, you know, two strategic reasons. One is,
    we have to get over the notion that the visa system needs to be
    perfect, because we all know that getting that last 10 percent
    or 15 or whatever is 80 percent of the cost. Visas are part of
    a layered security system, and at the end of the day the visas
    are never going to stop terrorist travel. What's going to stop
    terrorists is counterterrorism operations, intelligence, where
    they go out and get these guys. This is a part of the defensive
    system and a layered system and so it doesn't have to be a
    perfect system. It just has to be a good solid component. And
    if the expectation is no terrorist gets a visa, other than that
    you are not going to be a visa waiver country, then there's
    going to be no visa waiver countries.
        So I think it's a bad expectation to note that this needs
    to be an ironclad perfect system. If we just don't give
    passports and visas to known terrorists, I'd be happy.
        The second is we don't have all the resources in the
    universe and we have to realize that every time we add a visa
    waiver country, that's an enormous amount of resources, because
    most of these countries are people that, where most of the
    people come from, that we can put in other places. I mean there
    are proposals to end the visa waiver program. But when you
    look, when people started running the numbers and what it would
    cost to both the economy and in resourcing to try to give a
    visa to everybody that comes into this country now that doesn't
    need one, it was astronomical. So there's enormous resources.
    It's a tough choice. It's a strategic decision. But it's an
    enormous amount of resources that you could pull up.
        And the third is, you know, we have all talked about and we
    can't give lip service to it, it's economic growth, it's civil
    society and it's security, and all three are important. And we
    can't give economic lip service to the fact that we have
    growing strategic partners that fit and you know we've got
    polling, there's people dying in Iraq and the Czech Republic,
    which has been great, and India, which is an enormously
    important strategic partner, and we have had South Korea, which
    has been a strategic partner for 50 years, and we have turned
    to these countries and we've said, OK, countries like France,
    you know, they can come and go all the time even though they
    disagree with us. But you that have helped us out, you can't.
    You're not eligible for the visa waiver program, and that's
    simply geostrategically dumb. These countries can meet these
    standards. If we tighten our standards they can meet these
    standards and we should be--here I really disagree with Clark.
    We should make a strategic choice to identify key countries, to
    sit down and make a road map on what we can do to get there. If
    we need to add additional measures and oversight we should do
    that. But we should be charging ahead trying to add countries
    on the list and make the countries on the list do better, not
    take countries off.
        Ms. Ginsburg. Well, I mean I agree we should strengthen the
    program. And the first thing we should do is look at the
    airport embarkation points with our strategic partners about
    what we can do to improve the security there, including through
    the use of overseas DHS officers that are not that--are only in
    a very, very few places.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. We appreciate your presence
    at this hearing. You all have gone well, expanded what we've
    asked this morning. But if we just go back to what we discussed
    this morning, what was your reaction to the testimony you heard
    this morning?
        Mr. Ervin. Well, I'll start, Mr. Chairman. I'm very happy
    that you and Mr. Van Hollen probed both the DHS and the State
    personnel to ultimately highlight the fact that the Department
    of Homeland Security has not, apparently, pressured the State
    Department and enlisted the support of Congress to dispatch
    these VSO personnel beyond Saudi Arabia as the law intended.
    And I think it's absolutely critical that this be done. Again,
    this presumes that the VSOs know what they're doing. But I
    think it is possible to find people in our country who can
    serve in this capacity. I question, again, for the reasons that
    I've already said, not to beat a dead horse, whether State
    Department officers can do that.
        I think we need to learn from the lessons of history. After
    all, there were RSOs, regional security officers, before
    September 11th. There had been studies that have shown that
    RSOs have not focused on visa fraud to the extent that they
    should. I know something about that, having been the State
    Department's Inspector General and having fought jurisdictional
    battles frankly with the RSOs since there's a joint
    jurisdictional overlap between RSOs and the Inspector General's
    office. So I think it's critical that this be done, and then
    you highlighted the fact that it hasn't yet been done.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you.
        Dr. Carafano. I think what we heard was incredibly
    predictable. I mean Congress split the baby in a not very clear
    way and it forced these departments to figure out how they were
    going to seamlessly integrate their operations in areas where
    they have tremendous human capital, resource and IT challenge.
    And really they have asked them to do something that no Federal
    agency has ever done, which is to come up with a cooperative
    interagency Federal program of a major scale with major
    resources on the line and say make it all seamless and do it in
    4 years and the fact that they're struggling with it I just
    think is eminently obvious. And if it was anything less I'd
    question whether I was in the right country.
        Mr. Shays. The bottom line, from your standpoint, you did
    it from day one, this system is so flawed that we developed?
        Dr. Carafano. Quite frankly I think we're getting what we
    paid for. I mean we're getting very incremental gains.
        Mr. Shays. The answer is yes to my question?
        Dr. Carafano. Absolutely.
        Ms. Ginsburg. There seems to have been this morning a focus
    on resources, the need for consular personnel, and this is a
    need across our entire border system, the ports of entry as
    well. The investment in the infrastructure, in people, in the
    information systems, is lacking and it is just taking a long
    time to be built up. And I think we have to recognize that this
    is now a national security environment and there's a great deal
    at stake, so that when you are shorting consular officers,
    you're shorting counterterrorism capability.
        And although I don't fully agree with the idea of full
    separation between departments, I think you need fusion centers
    like the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center, which is
    jointly run by the Justice Department, DHS and the State
    Department, which is a center of expertise on human smuggling,
    human trafficking and soon I believe terrorist travel. And it's
    that kind of interagency cooperation which I think is going to
    make a big difference in connecting dots and in understanding
    trends and patterns.
        Mr. Morris. I think posts abroad certainly----
        Mr. Shays. So the question was--I just want to make sure.
    The question I first asked, before you maybe elaborate on what
    you just heard, what was your reaction to the testimony this
    morning?
        Mr. Morris. Reaction to the testimony this morning on?
        Mr. Shays. When you were sitting in the audience listening
    to this, what were you thinking?
        Mr. Morris. Well, I thought that as an American citizen,
    that I was puzzled why something had been mandated and 2 years
    later had not come about. And being a consular officer in
    Beijing didn't help me understand the bureaucratic reasons why
    it had not happened. So I agreed with your question.
        Mr. Shays. Well, do you think the problem lies more with
    DHS or more with the State Department?
        Mr. Morris. I honestly have no perspective particular to
    give on that. From our perspective and from everything I've
    heard in the State Department, we were told that this was a
    great agreement, we're going to make this work. This is policy.
        Mr. Shays. Great compromise.
        Mr. Morris. Great compromise, and then we waited out in
    Beijing and nothing happened. And when we discussed this with
    other DHS people, not in those types of programs, we didn't get
    a very clear--when we had chances to interact with DHS people
    in the field we would ask them what's going on because we
    wanted to plan for our own sections and how to incorporate them
    and how best to use them. And they couldn't really give us any
    clear answers. So we're just in a waiting mode.
        Mr. Shays. I'm going to ask our professional staff just to
    ask a few questions. And I thank Mr. Van Hollen for being here.
        Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank all of you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Costa. Mr. Morris, could you expand a little bit on
    what you were just talking about on how at Beijing you
    coordinated the policy, programs, information with the
    intelligence security and law enforcement personnel? Given this
    open setting, what was that conversation that took place? How
    did you get information from the law enforcement and
    intelligence folks? How do you incorporate that into your jobs?
    Were they helpful? Did you have a good relationship with those
    folks?
        Mr. Morris. You mean the people at post, the
    representatives at post?
        Mr. Costa. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Morris. I felt we got great cooperation from all the
    other elements, law enforcement elements, you know, the FBI,
    the DEA, you know, on and on. One of the things that wasn't
    mentioned today is a program where each month, and more
    frequently if necessary, the country teams get together and
    they discuss sharing the information. It's a mandatory meeting
    and it's mandatory that we reported back to departments called
    the Visa Viper program, and the purpose of that is that any
    information that anybody has at post that is in any way
    terrorist related to a potential future application should be
    shared with the consular section and you know, they may be
    transmitting that back to their own home agencies where they
    are supposed to also give it to us. And then we, you know,
    transmit it back in our channels. We got a lot of information
    in Beijing. I think we got good cooperation from that. We
    interacted with the agencies on the security advisory opinions
    related to not just terrorism but also tech transfer, which is
    a big issue with China. They're trying to get our technology,
    basically, and we're trying to prevent it. And when it's going
    to be used for potential dual use, those sorts of things. And
    we worked very closely with the Defense Attache's office, the
    commercial section and others that had expertise in certain
    technical areas that we in the consular sections did not, and
    sought their advice when cases came in and we weren't sure
    exactly what these people were going to the United States to
    try to ferret out. And if it was legitimate or not. So we had
    very good cooperation on that. And we worked closely with DHS
    also locally. But they were not in this particular security
    role.
        Mr. Costa. One of the issues that the GAO brought up was
    the need to increase access to the NCIC data bases, the FBI
    criminal data bases for consular offices, who now it's my
    understanding essentially you get a name hit and it says call
    the FBI and they will run, take a couple of weeks and run a
    background check. How would that have changed your job in
    China, the folks in your office in China? Would that have made
    life easier? Was that something that just would have added
    time?
        Mr. Morris. Sure. The more information you have on an
    applicant, the better. First of all, we had enough information,
    we were given enough information to determine visa eligibility
    so that, you know, that's our basic function. But if you're
    going beyond that to determine, for example, if there's fraud,
    a fraud scheme going on or a terrorist scheme or something of
    that nature, you know, the more information that you can get,
    it gives you a clue to ask another question and to go further.
    So sure, the more information the better. And sometimes the
    information might be, oh, they had a drunk driving conviction,
    you know, in Maryland. But, OK, and then that doesn't help. But
    at least, but sometimes then it may, you may get some
    information that causes you to raise another question and leads
    to a whole different line of inquiry.
        Mr. Costa. Then I guess my last question for all of you,
    but I guess we'll start with you, Mr. Morris, again is are
    there security steps that have been put in place since
    September 11th that maybe have gone too far, that are not
    productive? In your testimony you talked about the SAOs, but
    that seems to be something that's fixed. Of course there's the
    mandatory interview process now, which is fairly controversial.
    Are there issues like that, or you can even expand on that one
    if you like.
        Mr. Morris. Well, I think that there are a lot that are
    coming up in the future, you know, more fingerprinting and more
    facial recognition and, you know, there are many things that
    are coming down the pike. And I think, my point is that the
    department obviously these are very, very important security
    issues. But posts need to be given a heads up, this is coming
    down the pike, and given an opportunity to come back and say,
    if you do this you may make a policy decision to take this
    security step, but it's going to have this negative impact on
    tourism or business or trade or that sort of thing. So--and
    then there may be ways that people, you know, in Washington
    that are developing these policies, they can tweak the
    proposals so that they don't have these unintended effects. You
    said the security advisory opinion problem has been resolved.
    Well, it's been resolved in fact, but in terms of the
    perception in China and in the academic community and in the
    academic world it'll be years before the impact of that goes
    away.
        Mr. Costa. Thank you. Ms. Ginsburg.
        Ms. Ginsburg. I would just say that if you're going to add
    security layers and measures, many of which are very critical,
    then you have to add the personnel and the technology to make
    sure they work efficiently and that requires additional
    investments.
        Dr. Carafano. I'm opposed to mandatory interviews. I think
    it's the same problem I have when we are doing airline
    security. I mean we're using these legacy paradigms to do this
    and we're wasting 99 percent of our resources on 99 percent of
    the people that aren't a problem. You know, this is the
    equivalent of if the cop stopped everybody driving down the
    street and not just people breaking the law. You know, we
    simply need new paradigms that focus resources on the high risk
    people and quit wasting resources on people that we have a
    comfort level with or that are a low risk.
        Mr. Ervin. Thank you. Well, I am a contrarian on this
    point. I disagree with Dr. Carafano. I'm a hard liner on
    security, and I think it's possible to be a hard liner on
    security and at the same time understand the importance of
    diplomacy and understand the importance of resisting our civil
    rights, civil liberties tradition.
        That said, I agree with Ms. Ginsburg that all of this
    requires resources, and I think one of our problems, and I've
    said this on many occasions, is that we've underfunded homeland
    security. There's this false distinction between the security
    of the Nation, where we spare no expense, a $400 billion plus
    defense budget and literally a fraction of that, about a tenth
    of that for the Department of Homeland Security. Certainly more
    resources are required.
        So I'm completely for mandatory interviews. That was one of
    the recommendations I made as the Inspector General of the
    State Department. I'm very pleased to see that's happened
    today. And perhaps it's a failure of imagination on my part,
    but certainly in the visa area I cannot think of a single
    security measure that we've since implemented that I would take
    back. If anything, as you've heard me say, I would increase
    them.
        The final thing I'd say is GAO did make in its report
    today, as you know, the suggestion that a lot of time is wasted
    reviewing applications and Saudi Arabia is the only place where
    VSOs are mandated and it's the only place of course where the
    VSOs have to review every section of the application. I suppose
    it's possible in theory to presume that some Saudi person, some
    Saudi who is 5 years old, say, or some Saudi who is 99 years
    old probably wouldn't pose a security threat to the United
    States. But frankly, in this post-September 11th environment, I
    am skeptical about the ability of our government, and I think
    Katrina showed a couple of weeks ago, I'm skeptical of the
    ability of our government to draw distinctions and to work in
    the gray areas. That being so, I argue for more security,
    recognizing that is very costly. And as I say, I for one, and I
    say that incidentally as a conservative Republican, am willing
    to put the resources behind it.
        Mr. Costa. Thank you, Mr. Ervin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Shays. Thank you. It's a little off subject, but I
    wrestle with it and it gets to the point of how far does your
    security go? We are hearing continually from universities that
    the best and brightest students are being denied opportunity to
    study in the United States, and I think that is tragic. We are
    told that they have given up in many cases, applied and been
    accepted in European schools, in Chinese schools, in Russian
    schools, but not in the United States. Is there any indication
    that students have been the problem in the past, No. 1? And do
    you, any of you, have a strong feeling one way or the other on
    this issue?
        Mr. Ervin. If I could just start. Well, of course some of
    the people we were concerned about on September 11th were
    flight students. You're not talking about flight students
    certainly.
        Mr. Shays. I'm talking university students going for Ph.D.
    programs, and so on.
        Mr. Ervin. I can't think of any instance. But I agree with
    you. Certainly there has been evidence to suggest that students
    who we need for the continued economic success and the vitality
    of our country are going elsewhere because of the length of
    time it now takes for visas to be processed. And that's why, as
    I said, I think it's possible for there to be security and an
    advance in liberty and economic progress for our country, but
    that requires infinitely more resources. I think the State
    Department budget should be increased rather dramatically,
    right along with that of the Department of Homeland Security.
        Dr. Carafano. Known and suspected terrorists have tried to
    come to the United States on student visas. But the more
    important point is known and suspected terrorists have tried to
    come into the United States using virtually every means,
    asylum, illegal entry. So if there's a means to get here the
    terrorists have tried to exploit it.
        There has been a decline in foreign students coming to the
    United States. Security certainly has contributed to that over
    the last few years. There are other reasons as well. Other
    countries have targeted foreign students and tried to bring
    them there, and it's a much more competitive world. And the
    United States is less competitive in getting students here and
    the security is part of it. And it is a serious issue. It seems
    to have bottomed out. There's data coming out next month which
    will tell us if we have turned the corner or not. But even
    before September 11th we were already on a decline for that.
        You know, we have to look at these issues strategically. If
    we had infinite money to spend on everything that would be
    fine. But we don't and what we are doing is we're spending a
    lot of on money on a lot of things and not getting much of
    anything.
        Mr. Shays. How does that relate to my question?
        Dr. Carafano. It absolutely does because we need to make
    some hard choices. I mean, we're going to beat these guys in
    the end anyway. The point is economic growth and
    competitiveness are part of national security. Making this
    country strong by bringing these foreign students here and
    growing our economy is part of what makes us strong and pay for
    national security. So when we said, well, we can't sacrifice
    security for these things, those things are security.
        Mr. Shays. You're making this point because you obviously
    want me to understand something. I'm missing your point. My
    question is----
        Dr. Carafano. The point is, is that----
        Mr. Shays. You don't know where I have my problem, so let
    me explain to you where I have my problem. You're making an
    assumption. I'm understanding you based on words you're using
    that I'm not understanding. Not your fault, my fault, but it's
    your fault if you're not listening to my problem here. I asked
    about whether or not it was a cost to us to deny so many
    students the opportunity to come based on either denial or
    taking too long. I mean, in other words, they apply, Yale
    starts its program in September and they can't even get here
    until December. They're out of the program. So what I didn't
    understand about what you said is you said it was resources.
    Connect resources to that issue.
        Dr. Carafano. Well, the answer to your question is
    absolutely yes. The security procedures that are put in place
    since September 11th have made less students come here and it
    does make us less competitive. It's not the only reason why
    students are going other places and why we are losing them but
    it is one of them.
        Mr. Shays. I heard that part.
        Dr. Carafano. The argument that we can't make it easier for
    students to come here, we can't do this because it's security,
    I don't buy that argument because getting them here and growing
    this country and making it economically strong is equally
    important to the security of the United States as it is trying
    to keep terrorists out.
        Mr. Shays. And so the problem is----
        Dr. Carafano. The problem is you want a visa system that's
    good enough, that keeps known and suspected terrorists from
    getting visas. But beyond that I think you invest elsewhere in
    going out in preemptive measures. So I would say in trying to--
    as a layer of security, in trying to keep people coming to the
    United States and trying to interdict terrorist travel, the No.
    1 priority should be illegal means of entry and exit, making
    sure that those documents are secure and issued to the right
    people, and it should be keeping known and suspected terrorists
    from getting them. Once you've done that you take your
    investments and you put them elsewhere.
        Mr. Shays. Ms. Ginsburg.
        Ms. Ginsburg. We clearly had a big problem at the
    beginning.
        Mr. Shays. I want you to put your mic a little closer. I'm
    sorry. It's not your fault. It's just the mic is not working as
    well.
        Ms. Ginsburg. We clearly had a big problem at the beginning
    with huge delays and are now facing the diplomatic consequences
    of that. I think there is a problem, there are still long
    delays in the tech visa category. But I think the answer, I
    definitely agreed that known and suspected terrorists have been
    associated with the student program here and in England and
    elsewhere in Europe and it's a serious consideration. So we do
    need security in that process. And we need followup security by
    ICE using terrorism related data bases to make sure that there
    is continued compliance with the terms of the student visas.
        But I mean, we need enough people to do that and we need it
    to move fast and we need not to have delays, as were
    illustrated by the problem with the NCIC data process. We need
    computerization, automation algorithms and all the things that
    speed up those kinds of check.
        Mr. Shays. Mr. Morris.
        Mr. Morris. First of all, I would just like to note that
    actually the numbers, at least from China, are bouncing back.
    They're coming back after a decline. We've had extensive public
    relations campaigns, you know. We welcome, you know, legitimate
    Chinese students.
        Mr. Shays. If they are increasing again, is that because
    they're just willing to wait an extra year and just--the
    timeframe clearly takes longer.
        Mr. Morris. For most students the timeframe is really not
    an issue and never has been an issue, and the refusal rate has
    never been an issue. It is more the perceptions. Perceptions
    are huge in a place like China, where, you know, one message
    goes out and they all believe that. So there are some still----
        Mr. Shays. Well, I'll just tell you I've spoken to a number
    of different university officials, not necessarily presidents,
    who they tell me they're losing their students and they're
    losing them because they can't get them in here. That's what
    they're telling me.
        Mr. Morris. I think in the years after September 11th, 2 or
    3 years, that's exactly true. But I think that if you look at
    the numbers recently, you'll see that they're beginning to come
    back. The Chinese students are beginning to come back. But I
    absolutely agree that we're not only losing--if we discourage
    the students from coming we're losing not only the benefits to
    our universities and the academic exchanges and our own economy
    in the short term but in the long term.
        I have been posted in other Asian nations where you go and
    you know everybody in leadership positions in journalism and
    politics and business have had American educations and they
    send business our way. They understand America. And I think
    China is such an important place, you know, we need that sort
    of people going back, bright students going back.
        Mr. Shays. Dr. Carafano was basically making the point that
    it's a flawed system. We have three folks involved in this
    process, three different departments, and one would be better,
    and I think your choice was DHS, correct?
        Dr. Carafano. Yes, sir, that's correct.
        Mr. Shays. Nodding the head doesn't get on the transcript.
        Dr. Carafano. Yes, sir. That's correct.
        Mr. Shays. There's always, you know, you dig a little
    deeper, there's always these tradeoffs and you realize why it
    doesn't happen, like it seems so obvious to have DHS do it. I'm
    trying to recall, but, you know, I rarely have conversations
    with the Secretary directly, but this was one area that he was
    pretty concerned that this would be taken away from State. And
    then I remember having conversations with other State officials
    who said, you know, this is part of the work that you do in
    State and it's kind of like you have to earn your spurs and it
    helps round you as a State Department official, interaction
    with the communities and so on. So aside from the fact that no
    one in government likes something taken from them, there
    appears to be logic to why you would want them to interface
    that way, at least to me.
        I'd like you to react to that. In other words, if you did
    take it away from State, not likely to happen, but if you did,
    and give this whole process to DHS, is there a cost to State,
    in your judgment? Would they suffer from it? Would our State
    Department officials, when they were senior officials, have
    lost some experiences that would be important to them?
        Let me start with you, Mr. Morris. We'll go that way. Do
    you understand the question?
        Mr. Morris. You mean taking away the visa function from the
    State Department?
        Mr. Shays. Yes. Would it--the argument, I could just tell
    you I could agree with Dr. Carafano that, you know, just give
    it to DHS. In other words, you want to come to the United
    States, you just give it to DHS. And I see you shaking your
    head but I can see the argument. But then I can see a counter
    argument that says State Department, which is maybe more warm
    and fuzzy, may need that process and the interacting with the
    community, that country, people coming in, requesting to go to
    the United States. The interaction may be part of what's needed
    to round the State Department experience for someone so that
    when they are a senior official they went through that process.
    Did you go through that process as a State Department official?
        Mr. Morris. Absolutely. I mean, relationships between
    nations are not just sitting in big meetings and talking about
    the six party talks. They're human relationships. And, I would
    argue that those are the most important relationships over time
    that nations develop. You know, we're close to many countries
    in the world because our people have an affinity for each other
    and they have relatives and they----
        Mr. Shays. I'm not arguing about whether people should come
    into the United States. I'm arguing whether--and I'm sorry this
    seems to be so complex. I'm arguing whether there is argument
    that State Department needs to be the one handling it so they
    have that experience as part of being in the State Department
    as making them a well rounded State Department official. Did
    you do this process? Did you go--as a junior officer in State,
    did you do that?
        Mr. Morris. Absolutely. I started as a Vice Consul.
        Mr. Shays. If that had been taken away from you as an
    experience, would you be less of an official?
        Mr. Morris. Absolutely.
        Mr. Shays. OK. That's the question.
        Ms. Ginsburg.
        Ms. Ginsburg. I think that the idea of having one
    department only involved in homeland security is, you know--
    would be very atypical of how our government works. We have
    criminal justice capacity across many agencies of government.
    We have intelligence capacities across many agencies of
    government, including in State and local police forces,
    including, increasingly, functions relating to immigration. I
    think there's a kind of seamlessness that's needed for
    terrorism that can't be confined to one department.
        So competitive intelligence, sources of information that
    are multiple, different takes on a problem are very, very
    valuable when you're dealing with an adversary that's so
    illusive. So I think it--you know, there is an important
    function.
        Mr. Shays. Well, you're making the argument that you're not
    concerned when more than one department gets involved in the
    process. Dr. Carafano.
        Dr. Carafano. Well, the answer to your question is no. I
    mean there's other ways that State Department officials could
    get the cultural and professional development they need to
    proceed in their career. And quite simply, visa processing is
    not central to the core mission of what the State Department
    should be doing in the 21st century and it is central to the
    core mission of the Department of Homeland Security, which is
    preventing, which is supervising the means of trade and travel
    in the United States to prevent terrorism. So it's vital to the
    core competency of one department. It is an add-on to the core
    competency of the other department. It's only there because
    it's always been there since the 18th century. That's a poor
    reason to keep it there.
        Mr. Ervin. Well, I agree with my colleagues in part and I
    disagree with them in part. I agree with Dr. Carafano that
    there are other ways, it seems to me, for State Department
    officers to get the interaction with the local community that
    they need in order to be effective in that country and in order
    to be effective later in their careers. Of course there are
    political officers and embassies, there are economic and
    commercial officers. There are other things that consular
    officers do besides the visa functions, so there are other ways
    to get that experience. Point one.
        Point two, I'm actually not opposed to the present
    bifurcation. I think as compromises in our government go, the
    logic of it, and that's the key word, makes a lot of sense.
    It's the effectiveness of it that I question. I'm just afraid
    that if in fact DHS were to have the entire function, although
    if you have to choose one agency or the other I would put it in
    DHS, but the problem it seems to me with giving the entire
    function, not just looking at things from a counterterrorism
    perspective but the whole visa function to DHS is the opposite
    problem, that you need to focus on diplomacy as well. A DHS
    officer might focus unduly on counterterrorism at the expense
    of diplomacy.
        Dr. Carafano. Could I just followup on that?
        Mr. Shays. Sure.
        Dr. Carafano. Yes. I simply think that's a false argument.
    I mean one of the arguments not to give it to DHS----
        Mr. Shays. Which argument?
        Dr. Carafano. The argument that security, the security
    culture is going to twist this in some way. The argument
    against giving it to DHS is, well, those guys only care about
    security. They're not going to care about diplomacy and trade
    facilitation, so that's one of the reasons why we have to keep
    that in State. But if you look at the evidence, for example,
    the recent GAO investigations that were interviews of State
    Department officials in Canada, and if you talk to any State
    Department official that's in the visa process, they all tell
    you that their No. 1 concern is security. So I mean the guys
    that were supposed to be only concerned about trade
    facilitation and diplomacy, they're obsessed with security.
        Mr. Shays. But I could use your argument and just use it
    against you and make the point that to say that State
    Department is one dimensional would be false, too?
        Dr. Carafano. I absolutely agree with you, and because DHS
    has people who are as concerned with trade facilitation and
    movement of people as well.
        Mr. Shays. So if you agree with me, what's your point?
        Dr. Carafano. That there is no notion that because you put
    it in one department you're going to get this kind of
    insulation and you know they're going look at these other
    things.
        Mr. Shays. But your point----
        Dr. Carafano. It's a false argument.
        Mr. Shays. OK. Your point to this subcommittee is though
    that you would prefer, in fact you think it's nonsensical to do
    it any other way, than to have one department and the reason
    why we took it away from State where we had them do it was we
    felt that they were too much involved in the service side of it
    and not enough involved with the security side? That's the
    reason why we did it?
        Dr. Carafano. I think that's the wrong argument. I don't
    think it's--the culture argument I think is not a valid basis
    for the decision. The reason why I would take it away from
    State is I don't think it is a core competency of the State
    Department and I think it is a core competency and a core
    mission of DHS.
        Mr. Shays. Well, some day.
        Dr. Carafano. Well, it should be.
        Mr. Shays. OK. Is there anything that we need to put on the
    record, any question we should have asked, any statement you
    want to put on the record before we close out?
        Mr. Ervin. Maybe just one final thing, sir.
        Mr. Shays. Sure.
        Mr. Ervin. Not to belabor the point, but I think it's
    important in this last exchange to be clear about what the
    ``it'' is and what the core competencies are and what was taken
    away and what wasn't. I mean, to be precise, of course the visa
    function itself, the entirety of the visa function was not
    taken away from the State Department. It's only--the question
    is should there be some additional layer of review strictly
    from a counterterrorism perspective to make sure that in the
    future to the extent that can be humanly done of course we
    won't let terrorists into the country. The question is should
    there that be an additional layer of review and, if so, who
    should provide it.
        Mr. Shays. And the question that we can't answer today,
    which is kind of pathetic, is we've had 2 years experience in
    Saudi Arabia. Tell us the benefit.
        Mr. Ervin. I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's
    inexcusable that it's taken us 2 years to determine whether the
    program is effective and if the program can be as effective as
    Congress initially intended for it to be. Then it's critical,
    as I said, that it be expanded throughout the world because
    terrorists can go to any of 209 other visa issuing posts and
    get a visa there.
        Mr. Shays. And at the very least do it in a few other--in a
    sense that it's become a pilot program based on the pushback of
    State and the lack of aggressiveness on the part of DHS?
        Mr. Ervin. Precisely.
        Mr. Shays. Well, you know, you're finally getting through
    to me here.
        Any other comment? So with that, thank you, all four of
    you, for your testimony. We appreciate it very much. And with
    that, this hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 1:03 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
        [The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich
    follows:]

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