[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE IMPACT OF VISA PROCESSING DELAYS ON THE ARTS, EDUCATION, AND
AMERICAN INNOVATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 4, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-140
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
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______
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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
JON C. PORTER, Nevada C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina Columbia
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania ------
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio (Independent)
------ ------
David Marin, Staff Director
Lawrence Halloran, Deputy Staff Director
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on April 4, 2006.................................... 1
Statement of:
Edson, Tony, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services,
U.S. Department of State; and Jess T. Ford, Director,
International Affairs and Trade, U.S. Government
Accountability Office...................................... 11
Edson, Tony.............................................. 11
Ford, Jess T............................................. 22
Ma, Yo-Yo, artistic director, the Silk Road Project, Inc.;
Sandra L. Gibson, president and chief executive officer,
Association of Performing Arts Presenters; Dennis J.
Slater, president, Association of Equipment Manufacturers;
Kevin Schofield, general manager, strategy and
communications, Microsoft Research; and Elizabeth C.
Dickson, advisor, immigration services, Ingersoll-Rand Co.,
and Chair, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Immigration
Subcommittee............................................... 57
Dickson, Elizabeth C..................................... 109
Gibson, Sandra L......................................... 63
Ma, Yo-Yo................................................ 57
Schofield, Kevin......................................... 93
Slater, Dennis J......................................... 80
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 3
Dickson, Elizabeth C., advisor, immigration services,
Ingersoll-Rand Co., and Chair, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Immigration Subcommittee, prepared statement of............ 111
Edson, Tony, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services,
U.S. Department of State, prepared statement of............ 13
Ford, Jess T., Director, International Affairs and Trade,
U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement
of......................................................... 24
Gibson, Sandra L., president and chief executive officer,
Association of Performing Arts Presenters, prepared
statement of............................................... 66
Ma, Yo-Yo, artistic director, the Silk Road Project, Inc.,
prepared statement of...................................... 60
Schofield, Kevin, general manager, strategy and
communications, Microsoft Research, prepared statement of.. 95
Slater, Dennis J., president, Association of Equipment
Manufacturers, prepared statement of....................... 82
Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 7
THE IMPACT OF VISA PROCESSING DELAYS ON THE ARTS, EDUCATION, AND
AMERICAN INNOVATION
----------
TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2006
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tom Davis, Shays, Platts, Duncan,
Issa, Porter, Foxx, Schmidt, Waxman, Cummings, Kucinich,
Watson, Van Hollen, and Norton.
Staff present: David Marin, staff director; John Hunter and
Jim Moore, counsels; Rob White, communications director; Andrea
LeBlanc, deputy director of communications; Brien Beattie,
professional staff member; Teresa Austin, chief clerk; Sarah
D'Orsie, deputy clerk; Phil Barnett, minority staff director/
chief counsel; Michael McCarthy, minority counsel; Earley
Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant
clerk.
Chairman Tom Davis. Good morning. The committee will come
to order.
I want to welcome everybody to today's hearing on the
challenges facing the State Department in balancing security
and efficiency in the visa process. The purpose of this hearing
is to highlight the Department's efforts to cope with the ever-
increasing visa application volume in the post-September 11th
security environment. We also will examine the impact of this
process on American economic and cultural vitality and explore
ways Congress can ensure that the United States remains open
and accessible.
Following the September 11th attacks, we came to understand
that our borders begin overseas at our consulates and that the
process of granting a visa to foreign citizens seeking to
travel here is the first line of defense in protecting the
homeland from terrorist attack. Each of the September 11th
terrorists had at some point been vetted through a U.S.
consulate and received a visa. Consequently, the Government has
gone to great lengths to secure the visa process.
Congress mandated that nearly every applicant for a visa be
interviewed, the State Department began collecting biometrics
on all applicants, and many new consular employees were hired.
This state of affairs, however, has placed tremendous strains
on the visa process. Currently, some applicants for visas to
the United States can face daunting waits just to get
interviews, while others face merely seasonal spikes in wait
times or little wait at all. Indians, in particular, face
interview wait times ranging from 100 to 160 days. That is
simply unacceptable.
In our increasingly interconnected world, ease of movement
across national borders--of people and of capital--is
inextricably tied to economic prosperity. A quest for perfect
security is a fool's errand. Instead, we need to find ways to
maximize security while simultaneously preserving the vibrant
and open character of American society. In other words, what
risks are we prepared to accept and what burdens are we
prepared to impose on legitimate travel to the United States?
As the President signaled in his State of the Union address
this year, the competitiveness of the American economy is a
central concern for this Government, and an efficient visa
process is a vital component of that agenda.
American businesses need to be able to bring foreign
partners and customers here on short notice; American
universities need to continue attracting top-level foreign
students many of whom will choose to stay in the United States
and bolster our economy; and the American cultural scene will
continue to remain vibrant only as long as foreign artists are
able to bring their work to American stages and galleries.
Trade shows and arts presenters in particular represent a
significant segment of the U.S. economy, comprised largely of
small businesses that do not always have the resources to cope
with the significant additional expense of an inefficient
process. When these important sectors of our economy are unable
to do business in the United States, our collective quality of
life suffers.
One of our jobs in Congress is to make sure the executive
branch has the tools it needs to do its job as efficiently and
effectively as possible. At today's hearing I want to hear from
our witnesses about ways that Congress can assist the State
Department in streamlining the visa process, as well as
creative suggestions for improvements to the process itself.
For example, do we need to continue interviewing almost every
applicant for visas once their biometrics are stored in
Government data bases? Also, how can we make it easier for
State to hire the employees it needs to maximize consular
efficiency? These are just some of the questions the committee
is interested in addressing today.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. We have two distinguished panels of
witnesses today, including international music maestro, Yo-Yo
Ma, who has taken time out of his busy tour schedule to join us
this morning. Again, I want to thank all of our witnesses for
being here.
I would now recognize our distinguished ranking member, Mr.
Waxman.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing.
The openness of American society is one of our Nation's
greatest strengths. Unfortunately, as the September 11th
hijackers demonstrated, our openness can sometimes be used as a
weapon against us. In today's hearing, we will examine whether
our visa policy is striking the right balance between openness
to culture and innovation and protecting national security. I
fear that we are not achieving that balance.
Since September 11th, Congress and the State Department
have mandated that nearly all applicants be fingerprinted and
appear for a face-to-face interview before a visa can be
issued. These requirements create a burden for applicants, who
often have to travel great distances to the nearest U.S.
consulate. The requirements were also a challenge for the State
Department, which initially lacked--and may still lack--the
consular officers and physical space to conduct large numbers
of interviews in a timely way.
As a result of these new policies, delays in visa
processing exist in our embassies and consulates throughout the
world. GAO will testify that the applicants in India can expect
to wait nearly 6 months between submitting an application and
appearing in person for an interview. This is simply not
acceptable.
The long delay in processing visas is the result of efforts
to protect our national security. But, in fact, it can have the
opposite effect. In the long run, our security is enhanced--not
diminished--by the exchange of people and ideas.
There are also economic consequences to the delays in
visas. In my district in Los Angeles, both the entertainment
and technology industries rely on the inflow of ideas from
overseas to ensure that we remain at the forefront of
innovation and competitiveness. Unfortunately, as we will hear
from our witnesses today, new security requirements that
Congress mandated after September 11th have created a backlog
in visa processing that is hindering the timely exchange of
ideas and commerce through cultural events, education, and
trade.
Today we will hear from the State Department about why it
is taking so long to reduce the backlog of visa applications.
And we will start the process of considering whether there are
steps Congress should take to streamline the application and
interview process.
I appreciate the appearance of our special guest, Yo-Yo Ma,
who will testify about the effect of the visa delays on the
performing arts, and our other witnesses, who will testify
about the impact on business and technology innovation.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements for
the record. Any Members--Mr. Porter, do you want to make a
statement?
Mr. Porter. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
having the hearing today and for our experts that are going to
be testifying.
I come from the great State of Nevada, and it is a
community that bases its whole economy or the bulk of its
economy upon tourism and visitors, and I understand that since
September 11th we had to endure a lot of changes, nationally
and internationally, in how we handle travelers, how we handle
visas, how we handle immigration. As we have that debate on the
Hill as we speak, immigration creates additional challenges.
But I understand it is a balancing act. We want to make
sure that we have the securest borders in the world. We want to
make sure our communities are safe. We also need to find a way
to find a balance.
As I talk to our folks in Nevada, where we have 40-some
million visitors a year--a good share of those, probably close
to 10 to 12 million are coming internationally--we want to make
sure that if there is anything we can do as a community, we can
help support finding a way to have visas approved faster. We
want to make sure that the tourism base can help build our
economy.
And tourism, believe it or not, is one, two, and three in
every economy in the United States of America. In every State,
it is the top one, two, and three in generating revenues. So we
want to make sure that when we look at the visas we find a way
to help streamline. I know that is what you are trying to do
today.
But as I talk to some of our folks in Nevada, at McCarran
Airport and other areas, there seems to be a problem with
technology. So if there are some things we can do to help with
technology, apparently some of the transmission lines and the
capability and the ability to handle information is not
available into some of our communities, purely from the
technological side.
So, again, I appreciate the challenge that you have, and I
know there is a major impact on arts and education and also on
tourism and the resort and hospitality industry. So today is
critical. I am here to encourage you and say thank you for what
you are doing and offer our continued assistance to do what we
can to make sure in that balance we have the safest and most
secure borders in the world, but also allow those folks that
want to be a part of and visit our great country to have access
as quickly as possible.
So I thank you very much.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you, Mr. Porter.
Let me just note, our first panel is a very distinguished
panel, comprised of the Honorable Tony Edson, who is the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Visa Services at the Department of
State, and Mr. Jess Ford, the Director of International Affairs
and Trade at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, who
also happen to be constituents of mine in northern Virginia,
which makes them even more distinguished. [Laughter.]
It is our policy that all witnesses be sworn before they
testify, so if you would just rise and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
STATEMENTS OF TONY EDSON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR VISA
SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE; AND JESS T. FORD, DIRECTOR,
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRADE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
OFFICE
STATEMENT OF TONY EDSON
Mr. Edson. Chairman Davis, distinguished Members, I
appreciate this opportunity to discuss the efforts of the
Department of State to balance border security objectives with
our commitment to maintaining the openness of the United States
to international visitors.
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks of September
11th, the U.S. Government moved quickly to shore up our
Nation's border security and reassure American citizens and
international visitors alike that our Nation was safe and
secure. After conducting a top-to-bottom review of the visa
process, we still work ceaselessly to make sure that we have in
place as strong a shield as possible against those who do us
harm.
It is our fundamental commitment to balancing our security
needs with the openness of the United States that we strive to
maintain. The Department of State faces a great challenge,
however, in accommodating a mounting demand for visas while
safeguarding our Nation's borders. The cases of India and
China, in particular, highlight the special challenges posed by
the enormous growth in workload for the Department's consular
operations in those countries, as well as the unique strategic
and economic opportunities offered to the United States by this
increased visa demand.
Few relationships are more important to the United States
than those with India and China. With educated, dynamic
populations, growing economic power, and enormous strategic
importance, both India and China are emerging as confident and
assertive global and regional forces that increasingly perceive
the United States as a partner in securing peace and stability
in Asia.
As a result, people-to-people links between our respective
countries are growing at an exponential rate, through business,
tourism, and academic exchange. The links also include the flow
of immigrants to the United States. India, for example, is the
United States' second biggest source of legal immigration and
naturalization after Mexico.
The Department of State is committed to ensuring that the
visa application process, or perceptions of it, do not serve as
impediments to legitimate travel to the United States. Our
consular officers at 211 visa processing posts worldwide are
dedicated to this goal. In order to adjudicate over 7 million
visas annually, we have augmented the resources dedicated to
processing visas, creating more than 515 consular positions
since September 2001. The Department has enhanced the training
of consular officers overseas in interviewing techniques and
counterterrorism while continuing to also emphasize the need
for efficiency and facilitation of travel for legitimate
travelers.
We have invested heavily in automating the system for
transmitting and receiving interagency clearances, with results
that are incontrovertible. Now, once they are interviewed, 97
percent of all visa applicants around the world who are found
qualified to receive visas get them within 1 or 2 days. For the
2.5 percent of applicants who, for national security reasons,
are subject to additional screening, we have streamlined the
process so that this small percentage of the overall number can
still expect an answer promptly and predictably.
We are encouraged by the rise in non-immigrant visa
applications as well as reports of steady increases in visitors
to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program over the
last year and hope that these developments signal a resurgence
in international travel to this country.
The Bureau of Consular Affairs is committed to continuing
to employ all means at our disposal, especially our leading-
edge technology, to further improve the efficiency of visa
processing without sacrificing national security. However,
there are very real constraints, both legal and practical, on
consular operations. In the post-September 11th era, Consular
Affairs operates under a new set of legal and policy mandates
legitimately designed to enhance national security in the visa
possible. It is clear to us that improved management practices
and incremental resource enhancements will not be sufficient to
keep up with future demand for visas.
Accordingly, in addition to the near- and mid-term changes
that the Department of State can accomplish internally, or in
coordination with DHS and our other agency partners, we are
looking further into the future. We recently conducted a
strategic planning exercise we call the ``Futures Study'' to
better prepare for visa demand over the next 10 years. The
Bureau of Consular Affairs contracted a private firm to conduct
a sophisticated analysis of non-immigrant visa demand
initiators, or ``drivers,'' and to apply the results of that
analysis to projected demographic, commercial, economic, and
political trends worldwide over this next decade. We are now
using that study to make decisions about next steps in the visa
process.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I thank you again
for inviting me to participate in this hearing and explain the
Department's commitment to maintaining both Secure Borders and
Open Doors. The Department's plans to achieve this balance are
informed by our absolute commitment to supporting our important
bilateral relationships and legitimate travel from around the
world.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Edson follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ford.
STATEMENT OF JESS FORD
Mr. Ford. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am
pleased to be here today to discuss GAO's observations on
delays in the non-immigrant visa process. In deciding to
approve or deny a visa application, the Department of State's
consular officers at 211 visa-issuing posts overseas 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 security. But consular officials must
balance this security responsibility against the need to
facilitate legitimate travel. Congress, State, and the
Department of Homeland Security have initiated a series of
changes since the September 11th attacks to enhance border
security policies and procedures. These changes have added to
the complexity of consular officers' workload. They have also,
in turn, contributed to delays facing foreign citizens at some
posts who are seeking visas for travel to the United States.
For example, in February 2004, we reported that applicants that
faced delays when scheduling appointments for visa interviews
occurred in both China and in India.
Although wait times in China have improved in recent
months, applicants in India continue to face long delays.
Moreover, worldwide, nine posts reported maximum wait times of
90 days or more in February 2006. In light of the increased
workload per visa applicant due to additional border security
requirements, we recommended that the State Department reassess
its overall staffing requirements.
Since September 11, 2001, applicants have faced extensive
wait times for visas at some posts. According to consular
officials, posts that consistently have wait times in excess of
30 days or longer are considered to be a management problem.
State's data show that between September 2005 and February
2006, 97 posts reported maximum wait times in excess of 30
days. At 20 posts, the reported wait times were in excess of 30
days for the entire 6-month period. Further, in February 2006,
nine posts reported wait times in excess of 90 days. In
Chennai, India, applicants applying for visas faced an average
reported wait time during this 6-month period of 126 days.
Several factors have contributed to delays for visa
interview appointments at some consular posts. New policies and
procedures implemented since the September 11th attacks have
strengthened the security of the visa process. However, these
new requirements have increased consular workload and
exacerbated delays. For example, consular officers are now
required to interview virtually all visa applicants, and some
applicants face additional delays due to security checks.
Additional demand for visas is another factor affecting
delays. This is especially true for countries with significant
economic growth, such as India and China.
Inadequate embassy facilities at some posts also limit the
number of applicants that can be processed each day. Several
posts reported problems with work space, waiting areas,
inadequate numbers of security guards and security devices to
handle the flow of applicants. For example, our embassy in
Paris, France, does not have enough adjudication windows to
handle current demand. The State Department has not had
adequate numbers of consular staff to meet visa demand at some
of its posts. We reported that as of September 30, 2005, 26
percent of mid-level supervisory consular positions were either
vacant or staffed by junior officers. Since 2002, we have
recommended that the State Department perform a fundamental
reassessment of staffing requirements for visa operations in
light of its likely increase in workload.
In September 2005, we again recommended that the State
Department conduct a worldwide comprehensive assessment of its
staffing requirements. While State has increased the hiring of
consular officials, we continue to see a need for such an
assessment to ensure that sufficient staff with the necessary
skills are at the key posts in order to alleviate problems with
processing delays. Staffing needs should be based on clear
processing and workload standards and long-term terms.
State should rigorously and systematically determine
priority positions that must be filled worldwide based on
likely demand and develop contingency plans for emerging
increasing applicant demand. We recommended that the State
Department report to the Congress on the actions that it has
taken to reduce these vulnerabilities.
The visa process presents a balance between facilitating
legitimate travel and identifying those who might do harm to
the United States. The State Department, in coordination with
other agencies, has made substantial improvements in the visa
process to strengthen it as a national security tool. However,
given the large responsibility placed on consular officers,
particularly entry-level officers, it is critical to provide
consular posts with the resources necessary for them to be
effective. Extensive delays for visa interview appointments
point to the need for State to perform a rigorous assessment of
staffing requirements to achieve its goal of having the right
people with the right skills in the right places.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be happy
to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Edson, let me start with you. One of the challenges the
State Department faces is putting enough consular employees in
its interview windows to cope with the sheer volume of
applications. I have seen that as we go abroad. GAO has
recommended a review of the consular affairs staffing plan, a
recommendation which State does not concur with, as I
understand it. GAO reports that in April 2005, it found that 26
percent of mid-level positions were vacant or filled by entry-
level employees. It also reports that State's current
assignment process does not guarantee that positions in
hardship posts, many of which have some of the worst processing
delays, will be filled because it allows employees to choose
from among available job openings.
How do you justify this policy? And how can your staffing
plan be adequate when busy consular posts like Seoul, South
Korea, experience little or no wait times for visa interviews
while other posts, particularly in India, currently experience
wait times in excess of 3 months?
Mr. Edson. Thank you. The----
Chairman Tom Davis. And I have a followup.
Mr. Edson. All at once, too. [Laughter.]
We have worked very closely with GAO over the past several
years over a lot of these studies, and I think our differences
on the staffing plan are perhaps more semantic than anything
else. We have an ongoing process to review staffing at our
consular sections overseas. That process resulted in the 515
additional positions we have created in the past 5 years, and
plans into the future.
We are particularly concerned that the volumes that we are
reaching in the visa world are not something that we can
sustain with the traditional staffing model. Hiring entry-level
officers into the foreign service and assigning them overseas
to do consular work on their first couple of assignments and
then moving them up into the organization, that results in a
pyramid that is just way too wide at the base given the level
of demand now. We are working on a number of alternative
staffing models that we hope will give us flexibility to deal
with that non-immigrant visa demand into the future.
The specific question about differences in posts and the
comparison of, for example, Chennai and Seoul, a number of
factors contribute to those kinds of differences in wait times.
The physical plant in Seoul, in particular, is much more
conducive to a regular flow, a linear flow of applicants
through the consular section. The level of fraud in Korea now
is much lower than the level of fraud in India.
Chairman Tom Davis. You get a lot of repeats in Korea, too?
Mr. Edson. We get a lot of repeat travelers. Yes, we get a
lot of repeat business travel to the United States out of
Korea, whereas, in India, an awful lot of the work in Chennai
is the H and L temporary worker visas, which are a little more
time-consuming to adjudicate, in any event. So there are
differences there.
But we know that the wait times in Chennai are unacceptable
and are working through a number of ways, including physical
plant improvements, process improvements, the President's
announcement of a new consulate in the works for Hyderabad, and
staffing, to do what we can to drive down that wait time.
Chairman Tom Davis. Do you have enough flexibility in the
current law to cope with that? Or do you think you need more
flexibility? Or is that outside your charge here today?
Mr. Edson. In terms of personnel or in general?
Chairman Tom Davis. Legal flexibility, just legal
flexibility to allow you the personnel flexibility you need to
experiment.
Mr. Edson. That is probably beyond--I could take the
question. We could get back to you on that from the personnel
side.
Chairman Tom Davis. All right. The American Foreign Service
Association has recommended that Congress amend the Foreign
Service Act of 1980 to lift the dual compensation cap on
retired Foreign Service officers to give States more
flexibility in using these experienced retirees to fulfill a
seasonal or a stop-gap role in processing visas. As you know,
this committee has oversight of Federal Civil Service policy,
and we have granted this authority to other agencies in the
past. In fact, as we see some of the brain drain coming down,
we have been a little more permissive on this, I think, than
some of our predecessors.
Do you think more flexibility in hiring retirees would aid
in reducing backlogs and in providing guidance to junior
officers?
Mr. Edson. Oh, yes. As you may be aware, when we hire
retirees--and we do quite a bit to handle staffing gaps and
other special project needs--we are faced with two caps. There
is a limit on the number of hours they can work per year, and
there is a salary cap in addition. Since they are hired as
Civil Service employees, they get cost-of-living adjustments
every year, and what, in effect, happens is they hit that cap
on salary more quickly each year that they work, and thus as
they get more experienced, we are able to use them less
efficiently.
Chairman Tom Davis. OK. Mr. Ford, I want to mention for the
record we will be asking GAO to conduct a followup review
focusing specifically on wait times in India.
In your prior reports and again in your testimony today,
you have recommended a thorough review of consular staffing
procedures. What would GAO expect such a review to look like?
Could State address staffing shortfalls by hiring additional
Foreign Service national employees and start conducting
interviews 5 days a week instead of 4 days a week, for example?
Mr. Ford. Yes, you know, we did not prescribe exactly how
the State Department should go about such a study, but I think
there are certain elements that we would like to see in such a
study. I think, first of all, would be the setting of some sort
of performance standard for what an expected applicant wait
time might be.
We mentioned in our report in the fall of last year that
the State Department has an informal standard that anything
over 30 days would be considered to be a management issue that
they would have to come to grips with. So we think the
assessment should establish a standard and that workloads
should then be tied to that standard so that you could then
judge how many people you would need in any point in time to
deal with the demand.
I think that with regard to the issue of operations at each
post, based on what we have seen, there seems to be different
practices at different posts. For example, you mentioned
whether they interview applicants on a 5-day-a-week basis, how
many hours a day they interview applicants. A lot of that is
driven, I am sure, by the number of people they have, but I
think those are practical, day-to-day suggestions that the
Department should be looking at to try to reduce the wait time.
We noticed recently when we were in Italy that the embassy
in Rome had a spike-up in demand and that they basically
adjusted by increasing the number of days and the number of
hours that they were processing applicants. So we know that
those kind of actions would be helpful.
I think in the long term, the issue has to be looking at
what forecasted demand is likely to be. I think when you think
in terms of India and China where we know there is a
substantial amount of economic growth, the Department needs to
look forward, as they just mention they have done in a study
they--we have not seen this study yet, but it is the kind of
thing that needs to be done. They need to look forward in terms
of what likely demand is out there so that they can adjust
their resources accordingly so they don't get in a position
like they are now in India where they have an extensive set of
wait times.
Chairman Tom Davis. OK. Let me ask you, Mr. Edson, in 2004
we legislated what is essentially a universal, mandatory
interview requirement for all visa applicants aged 14 to 79.
Can you explain the effects of this requirement on State
Department resources? And do you think greater flexibility for
State in this area would help alleviate these long wait times?
For example, would it be possible to exempt frequent low-risk
travelers whose biometrics are already on record with repeated
interviews?
Mr. Edson. The requirement to interview all applicants that
became law in 2004, we had implemented similar processes by
regulation in 2003. It is an incredibly useful border security
tool. We find it a very valuable anti-terrorism tool to look
the applicant in the eye.
As time goes on, though, and we develop more sophisticated
screening and risk management tools, we would appreciate, I
think, the flexibility to use that tool, the tool of the in-
person interview, a little more flexibly. The personal
interview and the biometric collection process both require the
physical flow of applicants through our facilities in a way
that was not true before we implemented those processes, and I
think that is the biggest single impact of post-September 11th
changes on consular operations and on these wait times that we
are looking at, is the need to deal with physical appearance in
so many cases.
Chairman Tom Davis. OK. Thank you very much.
Ms. Watson.
Ms. Watson. I think we have successfully identified the
problem, but I have not heard yet what steps are being taken
and why it is taking so long.
Now, if GAO is involved, is there money proposed in the
2007 budget that would address increase in consular officers? I
did note that 515 additional staff have been employed. However,
it seems like the need is even greater than that. The training
and the length of time it takes to train has to be taken into
consideration.
So can you respond to what you feel will be the cost if we
are going to make the consular services more effective, more
timely, so that we could get the intellectuals into the country
that we need? What would the funding be? What would you propose
for the funding? And how can you quicken the pace of developing
this area?
Let me ask Mr. Edson and then Mr. Ford.
Mr. Edson. That is a very important question. The response
to the management challenges that we face in each of these
posts actually differs, and it makes the question a little
difficult to answer because there is a combination of staffing
and facilities in particular. We are constrained in India and
China by facilities as much as staffing because the windows are
all full, so adding more bodies does not help without building
out.
Ms. Watson. Excuse me. Let me interrupt you. I am aware of
that, and so maybe you can address--I know they differ. I ran
an embassy and I had a consular office and I knew what the
backlog was. But how are we addressing that? Each embassy and
each consulate is different. How are you addressing that? And
what would be the cost of addressing it?
Mr. Edson. I cannot speak to the cost right now, although
we could take that and respond later. How we are addressing it
is to look both globally at alternative ways or possibilities
for ways to do this work that does not rely on the traditional
model of people, you know, adjudicating officers on the spot in
physical facilities, and to look at the traditional model,
which is what we have to work with in the short and medium
term.
Each of our posts has been charged with developing
management plans on the ground. In addition, our staff here in
the Executive Director's office of the Bureau of Consular
Affairs and myself and my team, we are looking at things we can
do with alternative staffing models and better technology,
different building design, different options that will give us
the flexibility to move forward.
Ms. Watson. Mr. Ford.
Mr. Ford. Yes, with regard to the issue of cost, I cannot
answer that question. I have not seen any analysis that has
been done by the State Department with regard to what it would
take for them to fully staff all of their consular positions,
particularly at the levels that they need to staff them at.
They are bringing in a lot of new entry-level employees.
They have a gap in the mid-level supervisory positions which I
believe will take years for them to train the new people to do
the supervisory tasks.
So how much it is going to cost to bring these people in,
train them, ensure that they have the adequate language skills
to fulfill their responsibilities, we have not seen any numbers
from State as to what that amount might be.
Ms. Watson. Why isn't that a concern right up to the top
with the Secretary of State? Immigration in my State is a huge,
huge issue, and it is spreading across the country. And the
major concern are people coming over the border illegally. And
our concern is securing--our country securing our borders. It
is a top priority. It is a top priority right here in Congress.
What I am hearing is that it is going to take years and we
are looking at, we are assessing. Why is it not a top priority?
Why is it there could not be an assessment of what the need
fiscally would be so that you could get that in the budget as
we process it at the current time? I would think that with the
State Department you would have an assessment at hand, and it
is not good enough to talk about years in the future. We have a
current problem right now. We have illegals. They are
estimating the Spanish illegals are up to 11 million. I am sure
there are another million of others. And these are illegals.
The people that we are processing to come legally get caught up
in this.
And so I do not hear the urgency in what the two of you are
saying. Yes, Mr. Edson?
Mr. Edson. It actually is a top priority of the Department.
I did not mean to make it sound as if it is not urgent. It is
just that the response is--the problem is a little bit of a
moving target, and so the response is piecemeal. Looking at
staffing models is one part of that.
In India, for example, a new facility in Bombay that we
hope will open by the end of 2008, a new consulate in
Hyderabad, which may open in a leased facility in 2008, and
then in a purpose-built facility by 2012, a new online
appointment system that our embassy just implemented for the
whole country earlier this spring--those are all pieces of an
approach to meeting that workload in India and making sure that
those folks, that contribution to our economy is able to get
visas and flow through in a smooth way. But those pieces are
separate but related project plans that we keep working on as
we move forward.
The economy in India has shifted rather dramatically in the
past couple of years. In 2002, we had 32 consular officers
there, and they were meeting the demand with almost no wait.
Today we have 57 consular officers there, almost doubling the
number, and we have these waits. But partly that is a good-news
story from the back side, if you will, because the wait is
driven by the demand, which is driven by the increased exchange
with the United States, particularly in the high-tech industry.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Porter.
Mr. Porter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I guess to leave the script for a moment, any suggestions
for an out-of-the-box approach? Is there some ideas out there
that we have not been talking about that may work? I understand
you have your parameters and I know you have things that you
are supposed to bring up today, but out of the box, are there
some things that you think would help?
Mr. Edson. We are trying. Secretary Chertoff and Secretary
Rice made a commitment in January to a joint vision for working
together, largely on the IT side, to make sure that we have
transparency with DHS systems and that we use--we take full
advantage of that, leverage the power of these biometrics that
we are collecting now to somehow facilitate travel.
We have talked a little bit about balancing Secure Borders
and Open Doors, but I think if we designed our security
measures properly, most of them should facilitate travel in and
of themselves. It should not be a balancing act. I think we can
have it both ways.
We are committed to experimenting with doing visa
interviews by digital video connection. That will be a pilot.
We will do it a couple of different ways this year and see what
the results are, see if that is a useful model for us. We are
committed to moving to an online application, not on a paper
paradigm, but an interactive interview style, collection of
information from the applicant. That gets us data in advance.
We are interested in seeing what we can do to streamline the
interview and visa process at the back end, having collected
that information so much earlier in the process, instead of
right on the day of interview. Things like that we are working
on, and working with DHS on.
On the immigration side, we would very much like the
distinction between what U.S. CIS, Citizenship and Immigration
Services, does and what we do to be invisible to the public. We
would like the public service seeker to go through both of our
systems transparently, without realizing they are shifting from
one agency to the next. And I think that can only help as well.
Mr. Porter. You mentioned paperless visas. Is that what you
are talking about now, a paperless visa with the technology?
Mr. Edson. At one point--more than that. Those things that
I just discussed are things that I think are probably
practical, certainly practical, and that we are working hard
on. The paperless visa, we were intrigued by some of the models
with countries like Australia, perhaps, that for some
populations have managed to figure out ways to make the visa
process fully electronic where no foil or token is actually
issued at the back end.
That is a little more difficult in our operating
environment, but we would like to remain open to the
possibility of options like that.
Mr. Porter. You mentioned the different agencies, and I
know that the State Department and DHS have shared
responsibility. How is it working, that division? Is it
problematic? Are there some things that we can do to improve
upon that?
Mr. Edson. In the traditional sort of pre-Homeland Security
Act sense, the way that our immigration process is split
between INS and the Department of State in the old days, I
think that works actually quite well, particularly once we get
the data transparency issues resolved. You have a situation
where you have some checks and balances. You have a double
check in most processes that makes it more secure, I believe.
We just have to focus on the customer service to make sure that
piece of it has not become less efficient.
Post-Homeland Security Act, it is working pretty well, the
new responsibilities that DHS acquired for oversight of visa
policy, the visa security units overseas. We are still working
together to clarify the parameters of what each of our agencies
does so there is not unnecessary overlap. Sometimes the overlap
is useful and sometimes it isn't. So we are working together.
It is a new agency, and we still have a need to actually
provide more guidance to our consular officers in the field
about what it is that DHS will do and what way they will do it.
But we are working that out as they gain more experience.
Mr. Porter. Are there some specific things in this marriage
that could improve, that would help the visa process?
Mr. Edson. Not that I can think of offhand. Most of what we
are talking about here is non-immigrant visitors to the United
States, and DHS does not play a practical role in most of those
cases. Petition-based, temporary employment visas to the United
States, are all petition-based, and those do go through U.S.
CIS before coming to our consular sections abroad. So in that
sense, the interview wait time is only a part of the picture.
The wait time that an applicant has to get an approved petition
through U.S. CIS is also an important piece of the total
processing time.
Mr. Porter. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
The gentleman from Maryland?
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing, and I thank the witnesses. I apologize
for being late. We have a hearing next door in the Judiciary
Committee going on right now as well.
I just wanted to address a couple issues, if I could.
First, the whole question of student visas and higher
education. A number of years ago, a lot of us were alarmed to
see a dramatic drop-off in the number of foreign students
coming to the United States for a variety of reasons. I think
they enrich our institutions here in many ways, and they also,
I think, are helpful to our economy, those that decide to stay
and seek legal status in this country. I think over time
evidence has shown they have been a major boom to the economy,
especially certain sectors of the economy.
I understand now that has improved somewhat and the numbers
are back on the upswing. Can you talk a little bit about the
signals you are sending to our embassies overseas to ensure
that, consistent with our security needs, they are making
people understand that we welcome foreign students in our
universities here?
Mr. Edson. We are in a somewhat unique position now with
the Secretary of State's background, and I think I can very
honestly say that the importance of international education has
never had a higher profile in the Department than it does now.
For several years now, we have stressed to our consular
sections abroad the importance of processing student visas in a
very timely way so that no student misses the start of school
because they could not obtain an appointment to get a non-
immigrant visa, student visa.
We have added some instruction on the importance of
international education and business to our basic consular
training course. Most of our posts have been able to do
outreach to the student community. We have done a lot of
outreach to the educational community here in the United States
and tried to emphasize a model overseas that has our commercial
sections, our public affairs people, and our consular sections
working with the Fulbright Commission and other organizations
to reach out to educators and students abroad.
I think most consular officers now are aware of the high
stake we put in international education and the enrichment that
it brings to the United States. And we work regularly to
correct misconceptions, to make sure that community colleges
are treated with the same respect that prestigious 4-year
institutions get, likewise English language training, so that
the whole spectrum of U.S. education benefits from this
exchange with the international community.
Mr. Van Hollen. Could you talk a little bit about an
incident--I think it was a couple months ago--in southern
India--I believe it was out of Chennai, but I am not sure--
where a very distinguished Indian scientist applied for a visa
to come to the United States to attend a symposium, I believe
somewhere down South. He drove many hours to the consulate. He
was denied a visa. I do not know what the grounds were.
Ultimately, I guess New Delhi got involved. It became an
international incident, really, and I think the gentleman in
the end sort of said: You know what? You guys just made--this
was a humiliating experience, forget it, I don't want to come.
And that kind of signal, I got to tell you, sends a chilling
message to others around the world.
Could you talk a little bit about the specifics of that
case? What were the grounds for the visa denial? I assume that
because of the rapid reversal from New Delhi, the original
grounds were not--well, why don't you just--if you could tell
us what happened there, and what measures have been taken to
prevent that kind of incident from occurring again.
Mr. Edson. I cannot speak to the specifics of that
individual case in this forum, but I can talk about the process
in Chennai, and it was a fairly standard process that
individual case was involved in. So I think it will be
responsive to the question.
The need for personal appearance, the need for biometric
collection in the interview, that requirement to appear at one
of our facilities, particularly in a large country like India,
has made the visa process more time-consuming, more resource-
intensive for the applicants, as well as for us in the State
Department. It is not as convenient today as it was several
years ago in many countries.
Some applicants object to the need for an appointment, the
need to wait in line when they come for an appointment, and the
need for a personal interview. That is part of the picture.
In addition, in that particular case, and in other cases
involving scientists in some countries, we do do in a very
small percentage of cases some additional interagency screening
back here in Washington for scientists involved in particularly
sensitive fields. As part of that process, they are asked some
additional questions at the time of interview, mostly having to
do with their academic studies and publications.
We are fairly strong with our consular officers that they
can never arbitrarily put a case into some sort of status that
does not exist under the law. So even when we put a case into a
pending status, when we tell an applicant that we need
something else from them, would they please just fill out this
form or send something back to us, we technically are denying
them under the law, under a section of the law that just says
we need more stuff before we can make a final decision.
Most applicants understand our explanation, and that has
not been an issue. But that is true everywhere around the world
every day to the tune of thousands of cases, where the
applicant has not brought in as much as they needed to complete
the visa application. When they do complete the visa
application, we are normally able to process is to completion
relatively quickly, within a matter of a couple of days in the
case of some Indian scientists.
Mr. Van Hollen. Mr. Chairman, I see that my time is up. If
I could just ask, I guess the reluctance to go into the details
of this specific case has to do with the confidentiality of the
case. Is that----
Mr. Edson. Exactly. It is just the confidentiality of visa
application information under the INA.
Mr. Van Hollen. I would like to followup, though, because I
do think we can learn from specific cases, and clearly the
embassy in New Delhi reversed the decision very quickly, and it
raises the question about, you know, what was the problem to
begin with if it could be reversed so quickly just because of
the sort of public attention that was given to it.
Anyway, I do not want to take up any more time, but I would
like to followup. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I have the University of Tennessee in my district, and a
few months ago, Senator Lamar Alexander, who at one time was
president of the university and who was our Secretary of
Education, expressed concern that we were making it, he
thought, too difficult or too time-consuming for foreign
students to get into this country, and in some of my travels to
other countries, I have heard some of the U.S. embassy staffs
say some of those same things, that they are noticing students
from other countries going to Great Britain and other countries
where they might have come to the United States.
Now, to be totally accurate and honest, I have not heard
that expressed to me by University of Tennessee officials, and
there is a large foreign student population there and always
has been, or has been for many, many years. Do you think that
these visa problems or the increased security are causing
foreign students to go to other countries instead of the United
States? And do you think it is causing or having an effect on
academic institutions and conferences and symposiums? Either
one of you, have you heard that expressed?
Mr. Edson. It has been expressed, and there was a drop in
the number of international students coming to the United
States a couple of years ago. I did not--and I do not have a
good head for figures, so I am not going to make them up. We
could certainly respond on the record, if you wanted, with the
numbers, but the picture has gotten better in international
education. The original downturn appears to have been complex--
the causes of that original downturn appear to have been
complex. Certainly visas could have been a part of it. I am
positive that the perception of the visa process was a part of
it. SARS, changes in the educational testing system, the SATs,
administration overseas, changes in the market--a number of
those things happened.
We have talked to foreign governments about increases in
students in their countries, and some of them saw increases
that now have leveled off or declined. I think there is no
question that we are more--American educational institutions
are facing a more competitive international environment now.
More students go to Malaysia, for example, for English
education when they might perhaps have gone to the United
States before, but it is available cheaply and close at hand.
Those sorts of things have changed the dynamic.
Mr. Duncan. All right. Let me ask you a couple other things
in the brief time that I have. I have a very large population
in my district from India, and so I noticed that a couple of
these consulates that have these big delays are in India. Now,
you said one of the problems was that they have more H1-B visa
applications. How much longer does it take to fill out one of
those H1-B applications as compared to just an ordinary visa?
And those consulates where you say it is a management problem,
are they putting out a lot fewer applications per worker or
taking--I mean, what is the problem, as best as you can
determine?
Mr. Edson. India poses a unique sort of situation for us
because that demand spiked up so quickly. I do not have the
number I was going to share with you, but the economy has been
growing by about 8 percent per year, and with that, the high-
tech sector in particular has had a dramatic increase in the
number of applicants to the United States.
Our operations in India are actually among our most
efficient in the world. What we have there is a case where
demand just outstrips the physical plant more quickly than we
could respond to it.
H1-B processing, the temporary workers, is more time-
consuming, not because of the forms that are required. They do
have to file--the employer files a petition with DHS here in
the United States. That takes more time. But the judgments, the
questions that our consular officers are having to ask are more
complex. They have to go into is the applicant really qualified
for the particular high-tech job that they are going to and
will they be directly employed in it or benched to be loaned
out in a body shop type situation that is beyond what the law
specifically envisioned.
Mr. Duncan. In regard to the number of high-tech
applications from India, we were told by staff that there was a
decision recently announced to construct a new consulate in
Hyderabad, but that many in the business community,
particularly in the high-tech areas, wonder why Bangalore,
which is called the Silicon Valley of India, why that was not
chosen. Can you explain the rationale as to why Hyderabad was
chosen over Bangalore?
Mr. Edson. Sure. A couple of reasons. Hyderabad is the
capital of Andhra Pradesh. It is the sixth largest city in
India, a center of the high-tech industry on its own. Microsoft
actually has its India headquarters in Hyderabad.
Bangalore is connected to Chennai by a relatively good
road. It takes a couple of hours by road. The road connections
to Chennai out of Hyderabad are much worse, so it is
correspondingly a little more difficult for applicants in that
area to get to our visa processing center.
About 35 percent of the workload in Chennai actually comes
from the State of Andhra Pradesh and 20 percent from the
greater Hyderabad area right there. It seemed like a fit on
balance compared to Bangalore.
Mr. Duncan. All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays [presiding]. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Edson, let me ask you this: You were just talking about
India and the unique problems that you have. You have so many
people applying, and I think you said the demand is so great,
but you do not have the physical facilities. Is that right?
Mr. Edson. Right.
Mr. Cummings. And personnel?
Mr. Edson. Correct.
Mr. Cummings. What do we do with regard to redeployment?
You know, in most instances, I guess, when you have--and I am
not just talking about India, but I am talking about your whole
agency, where you see that there is a tremendous demand in one
area there, do you have any latitude to redeploy personnel?
Mr. Edson. Yes. In general, in the consular world,
resources have followed the demand, the workload. Back in the
1980's and early 1990's, when countries went into the Visa
Waiver Program, for example, after the workload stabilized and
we figured out what it really was going to be in that new base,
those positions were redeployed to other consular sections.
One of the things we are seeing right now is,
unfortunately, most posts are not going backward in workload.
They are just increases given the increasing connections
between U.S. companies and U.S. institutions with international
companies and institutions.
Mr. Cummings. Do you think that there is a--you know, as I
was listening to the testimony, I was just wondering. Do you
think that there is any kind of backlash from other countries
when they--you know, when it goes the other way? It is one
thing for folks to come here. It is another thing for our folks
to go other places. Do we see any repercussions, say, when
people see that their folks are unable to travel freely, do you
see anything or would that even be in your line of sight?
Mr. Edson. We do look for that. It is certainly within the
rights of other nations to impose, you know, restrictions on
entry into their countries. Most countries have not retaliated
in any way, trying to make an issue out of the appointment wait
times, for example. Even the fingerprinting, very few countries
initiated fingerprinting just because we did. Some countries
have programs now to move to fingerprinting as part of the visa
process, and we have given them technical advice on how we
implemented such a program. But most countries, I think, have
been more concerned with the economic benefits of exchanges of
visitors with the United States and have not slowed down visa
processing to retaliate for our resource issues.
Mr. Cummings. A little earlier you talked about the
staffing problems, and you talked about the physical
infrastructure. And I was just wondering: Is there a timeline
to submit this information, that is, the need for certain
things to the Congress, do you have a timeline for that, you
know, so that we can see if we cannot help remedy this problem?
Mr. Edson. In general terms, it goes into the President's
budget; it goes into the regular budget planning cycle. We are
trying to reach out further. The capital planning cycle I
believe is 10 years out for facilities, and we are key players
in both of those processes in the Department to try to reach
out to that.
When demand changes quickly, we have been able in some
cases to meet it either with permanent staff--and a lot of that
permanent staff post-September 11th was actually obtained out--
we were able to obtain it much more quickly than the normal
planning cycle would normally have allowed.
Mr. Cummings. How did you do that?
Mr. Edson. I cannot tell you. I think it was a supplemental
request, but I can take the question--I think it was a
supplemental.
We have gone--we do use retired--you know, we re-employ
annuitants widely. We have used Civil Service employees of the
Department on excursion tours overseas. We can do both of those
things pretty quickly. We have expanded the use of contract
employees for not inherently governmental work in the United
States in order to free up USG employees that we could then
shift overseas. Those sorts of things we are able to do fairly
quickly.
Mr. Cummings. Well, with regard to infrastructure, I guess
that is a much more difficult problem.
Mr. Edson. New plant is a more difficult problem. For
example, in India--Calcutta, Chennai, and Delhi--we have added
windows, interview windows, to the existing plant. We can do
that. We are just, you know, upgrading facilities that we
already have. That is something we can do fairly quickly, and
we do do fairly quickly, to the extent that--I mean, we can
only go from exterior wall to exterior wall, so there is an end
to how much additional space we can gain that way. But that we
have done.
The other new facilities, it is a longer planning cycle.
Beijing, we hope to open a new embassy in 2008, for example,
and I think that has been 8 years or so in the making. A new
facility in Bombay, 2008, and that has also been several years
in the making.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Issa.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will be brief.
Mr. Edson, the practice--I was part of the group that
defended keeping Foreign Service officers doing consular work
when that was going to be taken away under the reform of
Homeland Security. But I continue to have sort of the nagging
problem that it is the starting position. You put your absolute
freshmen, the day off the boat, into that position, and often
it is not the shining part of a State Department person's
career to oversee that.
Do you have any reforms that you think would help the
process of both reliability and speed when it comes to meeting
those requirements of evaluating visas?
Mr. Edson. Thank you. Thank you for that.
Mr. Issa. Thank you for saying ``thank you.''
Mr. Edson. We think that the model has worked for us. The
real challenge is the volume, the total number of people we
need at the entry level now. But most consular officers--most
Foreign Service officers doing a consular tour abroad are
supervised by experienced managers with the recognition of the
mid-level gap that we have now that Jess mentioned earlier.
These are dedicated professional employees who, whether they
joined the Foreign Service in order to do this or not, do it
well and do it seriously. They are mostly very efficient at the
work, concerned about national security as well as travel; if
anything, more concerned about national security.
Again, our quandary is dealing with the need for enough
resources to do the work effectively into the future with the
sort of demand we are projecting several years out. And so we
are looking at alternative staffing models that will give us
the skills and the capability of the professional Foreign
Service Corps, but with more flexibility to address the volume.
Mr. Issa. To followup a little bit along the same line, you
know, we are debating, as we speak practically, significant
changes in immigration policy, immigration enforcement, but it
has long been a policy of the State Department to deal with
countries which have a high no-return rate differently than
those who have a lower no-return rate, which tends to be purely
along--almost purely along economic grounds.
At a time when we have 11 to 20 million illegals in this
country, 40 percent overstays, essentially no ability to
reasonably control who is here to the tune of 12 or more
million people, is it really a prudent policy to discriminate
based on the no-return rate, when, in fact, you know, we have
such a loose policy in general? In other words, is there a
reason to continue trying to run the pumps on the Titanic if--
or let me rephrase that, to patch one hole on the Titanic,
when, in fact, the pumps have shut off and you have 11 million-
plus illegals in this country?
Mr. Edson. When you talk about a policy of discrimination
based on a no-return rate, are you referring to adjudication?
Mr. Issa. Your consulars actually have a different standard
for accepting applications wanting to come to the United
States. I have worked in the Middle East a lot from my work on
International Relations, and you have countries that are rich
countries, and they basically get a rubber stamp on their
visas. They do get quick approvals, where if you are from a
country with a high no-return rate and you are going to a
wedding of your brother or sister, the chances are you are
going to be told no.
Mr. Edson. I understand what you are getting at. We do not
discriminate--we do not have different policies in different
countries. In applying the Immigration and Nationality Act,
looking at tourists and temporary visitors in particular,
looking at whether they have a residence abroad they intend to
return to, that is an easier decision to make if the applicants
in general have well-paying jobs and established family and
property abroad than it is in countries where that is not the
case. And that may be why it appears that it shakes out along
economic lines because it will. I mean, the rates of fraud, for
example, tend to be higher in some of the developing economies
and the rates of non-return in those economies where there are
fewer opportunities for applicants at home.
Mr. Issa. Certainly. Mr. Ford, are there studies that you
could provide this committee about the tens or hundreds of
billions of dollars in lost economic activity as a result of
delay in bringing people to this country to meet economic
needs, particularly when it comes to business deals, specific
contracts that went to other countries because, to be honest,
we could not provide visas for people to come here to negotiate
those and the like. And when I travel abroad I hear it
constantly. What I want to know is can you quantify it.
Mr. Ford. I can tell you we have not quantified it. I have
seen some studies done by the American Chamber of Commerce and
some other business groups that have raised the issues that you
have raised, but we in GAO have not looked at that issue, and I
am not sure it can be quantified. I think that there is lots of
anecdotal information that we have heard, I guess similar to
yourself, but I am not aware of any actual scientific studies
that have been done on this issue.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. I think that will
conclude this panel. I want to thank both of you for taking the
time to be here, and the committee will now move to our next
panel. Thank you.
Chairman Tom Davis. We have a very distinguished second
panel as we move everyone up here. We have Ms. Sandra Gibson,
who is the president and the CEO of the Association of
Performing Arts Presenters. We have Mr. Yo-Yo Ma, the artistic
director of the Silk Road Project, Inc., who has taken time out
from his tour. He is performing at the Kennedy Center tonight.
We have Mr. Dennis J. Slater, who is the president of the
Association of Equipment Manufacturers. We have Mr. Kevin
Schofield, the general manager of strategy and communications
for Microsoft Research. And we have Ms. Elizabeth Dickson, who
is the advisor in immigration services, Ingersoll-Rand Co., and
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Let me thank all of you for taking the time to be here
today.
If you could all stand up and just--we always swear
everybody in before you testify.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Ma, we will start with you. Let me
just give you a personal thanks from me and the committee for
taking time out. I know you have to leave at noon. You have to
get back and prepare for this evening. But thank you very much
for being here. I want to thank all the panelists for being
here today. It is a very important issue for this country
economically and has a lot of geopolitical ramifications, too,
in terms of how we deal with this.
Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, Mr. Ma.
STATEMENTS OF YO-YO MA, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, THE SILK ROAD
PROJECT, INC.; SANDRA L. GIBSON, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, ASSOCIATION OF PERFORMING ARTS PRESENTERS; DENNIS J.
SLATER, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURERS;
KEVIN SCHOFIELD, GENERAL MANAGER, STRATEGY AND COMMUNICATIONS,
MICROSOFT RESEARCH; AND ELIZABETH C. DICKSON, ADVISOR,
IMMIGRATION SERVICES, INGERSOLL-RAND CO., AND CHAIR, U.S.
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IMMIGRATION SUBCOMMITTEE
STATEMENT OF YO-YO MA
Mr. Ma. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I'm
grateful for the opportunity to speak with you today.
I'm 50 years old and I've been playing the cello for 46
years and I'm still trying to get it right. Of the last 30
years of being a professional musician, I've spent the
equivalent of 20 on the road. Music and travel are constants
for me. In my mind, they stem from the same fundamental human
sources: an eagerness to explore new territory and a passion
for learning. They also both require guides and Ambassadors, if
you will, to reveal the beauty and meaning of a place or a
piece of music.
But while travel and performance are similar, music has one
crucial advantage. It is eminently accessible. You don't need a
passport or a plane to visit someplace new. Music provides a
shortcut, allowing you to be transported thousands of miles
away and back during the 2-hour span of a concert.
It is this quality of music that is so powerful, and it is
the ability to bring this music and these guides, these
Ambassadors, whether musicians, dancers, or artists, to
audiences here in the United States that I hope we will always
support and encourage as a country. And it is on behalf of
these cultural guides that I'm here today to urge you to
simplify the visa process.
My personal experience with the visa process stems from my
work with the Silk Road Project, an organization I founded in
1998 to bring musicians from all over the Silk Road region
together both to perform contemporary and traditional works as
well as to inspire new compositions.
I'm proud to say that the organization has been successful.
We've performed on four continents in venues ranging from the
Hollywood Bowl to the Washington Mall in cities across the
Middle East and Central Asia.
In the ensemble we now have 50 musicians from 15 countries.
However, the barriers to bringing these musicians, these
cultural guides to the United States have become
extraordinarily high. We at the Silk Road Project, along with
other organizations, like the World Music Institute and the
many important organizations that Sandra Gibson will be
mentioning, have found it increasingly difficult to facilitate
this cultural exchange because of high financial costs,
uncertain timelines, and countless logistical hurdles.
Two Iranian musicians, Siamak Aghaei and Siamak Jahangiri,
with whom we have been playing since 2000, who have visited the
United States almost 10 times, must wait months before getting
their visas. With no embassy in Iran, they must fly to Dubai in
order to sit for an in-person interview and then fly back a
second time to get the visas. This past year, it required a
third visit to Dubai, as the printer for the visas was out of
order and it was unknown when it would be repaired. All told,
for these two musicians to participate in their ninth United
States tour with the Silk Road Project, the process cost $5,000
and lasted 3 months.
Sometimes the process never gets under way. Both Zola, one
of the great exponents of the long-song tradition in Mongolia,
and Wu Tong, the great virtuosic Chinese Sheng player and
singer, often cannot even get through the gates to U.S.
embassy. Despite having completed all the paperwork, they are
frequently shut out because of language barriers or cultural
differences.
With fewer of these barriers, our culture has the potential
to offer so much. Truly American artists, like Duke Ellington
and George Gershwin, sprang from the intersection of
international musical styles. In fact, it is worth noting that
both Ellington and Gershwin's teachers were students of the
great Czech composer Antonin Dvorak, whose time in the United
States is a concrete example of cultural exchange. Our cultural
strength has always derived from our diversity of understanding
and experience.
The benefits to a simpler visa process extend beyond the
cultural progress and revitalization we can expect in the
future. There's a real desire, even a need, for this cultural
richness and diversity today. American audiences are thirsty
for new cultural experiences and are eager to understand the
inside of these foreign places.
At first, we at the Silk Road Project were nervous about
the audience's reaction. We feared we would find people
uninterested, indifferent, or even hostile to foreign-sounding
music. I vividly remember going on stage in Dallas with the
Silk Road Ensemble on October 11, 2001, wondering whether an
audience would want to hear a program focusing on the music of
Iran, a country so closely associated by many at the time with
the attacks 1 month prior.
Quite the contrary. Audience reaction has been
overwhelmingly supportive. In Dallas, the audience leapt to its
feet, spurred on not only by the music, but also by the signal
the music sent, the overwhelming power of culture to connect
individuals and to create trust.
I'm proud to say that all of the American performances by
the Silk Road Ensemble have been sold out, whether in large
cities like New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, or in
smaller cities, like Sarasota, FL, Flint, MI, or Columbus, GA.
Rather than rejecting unfamiliar musical instruments and
sounds, people have demanded and embraced them.
Perhaps this is a reflection of our global era in which no
one grows up listening to just one kind of music. Perhaps it is
also a reflection of the growing cultural awareness and
curiosity of the American audience.
While very few Americans have the opportunity to travel to
rural India and even fewer to rural Kyrgyzstan, the arts allow
everyone to catch a glimpse into these other worlds through
their music, their dance, and their art. Encouraging artists
and institutions to foster these artistic exchanges--bringing
foreign musicians to this country and sending our performers to
visit them--is crucial. But the high financial cost and the
lengthy timeline make these programs difficult to execute and
to maintain.
Trust is fundamentally at the center of this discussion. Do
we trust people to come into this country to do good, or not?
In any musical ensemble, you have to trust your fellow musician
in order to succeed in creating something beautiful on stage.
The musicians in the Silk Road Ensemble have earned the trust
of each other and of audiences around the world. I sincerely
hope that they and the many other musicians from foreign
countries will be able to earn your trust so they can continue
to be Ambassadors from their cultures and countries and so they
can carry our message of trust and open exchange back to theirs
as well.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ma follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Ms. Gibson.
STATEMENT OF SANDRA GIBSON
Ms. Gibson. Thank you, Chairman Davis, distinguished
members of the committee, for having me testify today on this
important issue. I'm pleased to be joined here by Yo-Yo Ma.
I want to focus my presentation--you've got the full
testimony--on the negative impact of visa processing delays on
the performing arts field and industry in the United States. I
have some examples of the problems we continue to experience.
We'll talk about the importance of cultural exchange and offer
a handful of recommendations to improve the overall processing
system.
What we're talking about is sustaining a vibrant global
marketplace for a large core of what are small or mid-size arts
businesses, nonprofit and for-profit. It's the intersection of
culture and commerce and the critical need for access and
exchange.
Arts Presenters is the national service organization for
the performing arts presenting and touring field, which has
over 7,000 organizations in the United States with a collective
annual earned and contributed income of $8.5 billion. The
presenting field reaches over 300 million people, audience-
goers, every year. We're honored to be a representative of a
larger performing arts community and coalition. I'm joined in
the gallery by many of my colleagues from the American Arts
Alliance and the Performing Arts Visa Taskforce, both of which
have been working on these issues for 5 years, since before
September 11th.
And the organizations can relate to other business
interests here today. We are an industry powered by small
businesses. Almost two-thirds of the organizations in our
association have budgets less than $500,000 and are active
globally.
Next slide. Arts Presenters' vision statement best
captures--next slide, please--why improving the process is so
critical to our industry.
Next slide. All people should experience the transformative
power of live performance. Art and ideas should circulate
vigorously and freely. Artists should play a leading role in
civic affairs and global dialog. People of all cultures must
interact and affirm themselves through the arts and through
culture.
Next slide. In 2002, nearly 75 percent of our industry was
presenting foreign artists in the United States. By 2005, that
number had dropped to 60 percent. These statistics signal an
ongoing problem with the process and a chilling effect on our
performing arts industry.
As you know artists from the U.S. travel abroad, share our
artistic and cultural heritage, exchange ideas, expressions,
and experience other cultures in their cultural context. In
turn, artists from abroad come to the United States to share
their experiences, their traditions, and heritage. These are
the artists who are the leading thinkers, change agents in
their societies and exactly the individuals, the creative
connectors we want to visit our country, perform on our stages,
teach our young people, experiencing America and taking back
those experiences to their homeland.
The reciprocal exchanges of artists creates a core of
cultural Ambassadors in the United States, so fundamental to
our diplomatic mission. Secretary of State Rice has committed
to increasing exchanges of this kind with the rest of the world
as key to what she is calling transformational diplomacy
platforms. Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes has voiced
that these types of exchanges are considered the single most
successful public diplomacy in the past 50 years.
So the industry plays a vital role in global exchange and
therefore in our foreign affairs, public diplomacy, mission and
goals. It's time we establish a visa process that strikes the
balance between secure borders and a United States that fosters
exchange and supports cultural commerce.
The presenting and touring performing arts industry is
time-specific. These activities revolve around a practice where
you secure performances 6 months to 3 years in advance,
particularly if you're talking about artists from abroad. Once
a performance is engaged or booked, advance marketing,
promotions, ticket sales are initiated, significant costs are
incurred and fronted. Organizations, many small businesses, are
making the economic investment, taking the risk for the
enjoyment and experience of our citizens.
The vagaries of the visa process regularly put the
performances in our industry in jeopardy, facing unpredictable
economic losses from delays and, in the worst cases, complete
cancellation of performances and tours.
We have three principal concerns with the visa process:
State Department and consulate delays. Last week, the media
reported that the Halle Orchestra from Manchester, England,
canceled its two-concert American tour, including playing
Lincoln Center in New York, due in large part to U.S. State
Department visa policy. Each member of the 100-person orchestra
and staff was asked to travel to the U.S. embassy in London for
his or her interviews at an additional expense of nearly
$80,000 and 2 days of extra delay, and their time.
For USCIS, we've experienced significant delays for
nonimmigrant O and P visas. I have examples of those, but I
won't cite them.
And finally, oversight by DHS and the process. There's a
lack of oversight and coordination of the process by Department
of Homeland Security. CIS is not functioning well. Processing
center policies and procedures are not uniformly executed. And
we've heard even that processing applications is not happening
electronically. DHS must exercise leadership in overseeing a
more complicated, changing processing system. There's a need
for inter-agency coordination and management as well as
consistent communication of changes.
Now, we've met with all three agencies and officials over
the past 5 years, with varying success, and certainly found the
Department of State the most receptive to our needs. As an
example, last year Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa
Services, Janice Jacobs, sent much-needed interview guidance
memos to all posts around the world. We understand that Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, Tony Edson, is
considering reissuing these memos shortly, and this needs to
happen.
Next slide. Our recommendation.
For State Department, encourage a frequent traveler status
for nonimmigrant visas in the artist O and P visa category. We
ask for adherence to and a practice of the policy of
flexibility regarding location of consular interviews.
With USCIS: Treat any arts-related O and P visa petition
that fails to be adjudicated within the legal 30 days as a
premium processing case, free of the additional premium fee.
This would return our processing times back to a more
manageable 45 days maximum timeframe.
And for DHS: Just manage the entire system. Make
assessments along the way and better improve the system along
the way. Exercise more leadership over the process.
Additionally, we request that you and your colleagues on
the committee designate more funds to these agencies to
specifically improve visa processing, interviewing, and the
approval system, as well as to assure more leadership over the
process.
Next slide. As a field, we don't come to the table just
asking for reform and relief without doing something ourselves.
We've invested significant time and dollars to do our part by
training and informing our entire industry, keeping them
apprised of changes, increasing their capacity to complete the
visa petition process to bring artists to the United States.
The Web site artistsfromabroad.org was inaugurated 3 years ago
with the American Symphony Orchestra League and provides the
practices, comprehensive processes, the step-by-step way to get
successfully through the visa system. We conduct seminars and
surveys regularly to assess issues and concerns.
So our industry and the wider business community have
complied with the important administrative and security
changes. We've paid the additional costs associated with
obtaining a visa, with the ongoing promise of change from each
of these agencies.
As we approach the 5th anniversary of September 11th, we
have to see more movement on changes requested and overall
improvement. The system is not working for us at this time, and
it really is a time when we should be ramping up cultural
exchange and commerce. So we welcome the committee's
involvement in making these changes happen.
And final slide. You can find out more at our Web site.
I'm happy to answer committee questions and provide more
examples of the specific problems and issues I've cited.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gibson follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Slater.
STATEMENT OF DENNIS SLATER
Mr. Slater. Chairman Davis, members of the committee,
thanks for the opportunity to testify today. I'm the president
of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers and the past
chairman of the International Association of Exhibition
Management. AEM is a trade association for the manufacturers of
off-road equipment, products and services used worldwide in the
construction, agricultural, mining, forestry, and utilities
fields.
My testimony today focuses on two major trade shows we
produce. These are CONEXPO-CON/AGG, the largest trade show in
the Western hemisphere for the construction industry, held in
Las Vegas, and the International Construction Utility Equipment
Expo [ICUEE], the leading utility construction expo held in
Louisville.
Our trade shows bring thousands of international buyers and
sellers together to see and purchase millions of dollars in
equipment. CONEXPO-CON/AGG attracted more than 124,000
attendees to Las Vegas, including 21,000 international
visitors. We make an extra effort to bring international buyers
to CONEXPO-CON/AGG, particularly from China and India, two of
our largest markets. We could be much more successful if
qualified international business prospects didn't face problems
obtaining visas.
As an example, a 40-member delegation from India had nearly
half of its members refused visas, while 12 delegates canceled
their visa appointments due to difficulties. Most said that
they would attend trade shows in Europe and Asia instead of our
U.S. events. In a letter from the Indian delegation leader, he
wrote that he was advising his delegates not to attend any
trade shows in the United States in the future. He also
expressed disappointment with the treatment the delegates
received at the U.S. consulate. He commented that the U.S.
embassy does not want to promote business between the two
countries.
Our staff in Milwaukee and our branch office in Beijing
dedicate a considerable effort assisting visa applicants in
China. We had 796 applicants work through our offices to obtain
visas for CONEXPO-CON/AGG; 161, or 20 percent, were denied
visas. And additional 84 applicants decided not to attend due
to the visa process. The applicants that did do the process
experienced long wait times between application and interview
and found the interviews to be perfunctory at best.
Our Indian and Chinese applicants are not alone in these
experiences. A delegation from Ecuador arrived at their
interviews, at significant personal expense, with invitation
letters, brochures, financial statements, only to be told the
consulate didn't know anything about our event and didn't see a
need for the attendees to come to CONEXPO-CON/AGG--this,
despite the fact that CONEXPO-CON/AGG is listed on the State
Department's Internet data base of key U.S. trade events and
has the support of the U.S. Department of Commerce as a
participant in the International Buyer Program. Although there
were personal letters from AEM and intervention by DOC, the
appeal was denied.
In a delegation of more than 40 contractors Romania only 14
received visas. The others were rudely told that they didn't
expect them to return to Romania if they were granted visas.
At our ICUEE show, a delegation organizer from India
complained that their visa applicants had to wait a minimum of
3 months for an interview appointment. Applicants reported that
they were rarely asked more than a handful of questions and
that consular officers appeared poorly prepared for the
interviews despite the time and expense of the applicants.
Once again, many of these applicants will attend
competitors' shows in Europe and Asia and will never again make
an effort to attend U.S. trade shows.
AEM has also been forced to allocate considerable resources
on the application process and away from our promotion efforts
to bring international customers to the United States.
We would like to offer some suggestions to improve the
process. First, the State Department should allocate more staff
to high-applicant posts to reduce wait times and provide
additional training to alleviate charges of rudeness and
inconsistency. The State Department also should prepare
applicants more thoroughly for the interviews. State should
also make reasons for visa refusals more transparent. And the
posts should differentiate business visa applicants by
establishing business windows, set times and keep appointments.
Finally, there should be a streamlined process for business
applicants who have received temporary business visas in the
past, for applicants who are regular trade show attendees.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify and look forward
to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Slater follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Schofield.
STATEMENT OF KEVIN SCHOFIELD
Mr. Schofield. Chairman Davis, members of the committee,
thank you for the chance to testify today.
America's need for the world's most talented persons has
never been greater, yet high-skilled emigration to the United
States is in crisis. The obstacles that face business visitors,
students, and talented workers seeking to travel to the United
States pose a direct threat to American competitiveness.
Microsoft, like many American companies, competes on a
global stage. As we work to develop world-class software, we
also need to involve experts from other countries in meetings
here in the United States. Yet we have suffered severe
disruptions in recent years from inordinate and unpredictable
delays and denials of business visitor visas.
It is also crucial that our universities continue to
attract and educate the best students from around the world.
They fuel innovation, creativity, and economic strength. The
changes that have taken place in the visa process have created
a disincentive to study in the United States. When we make it
difficult to study here, other countries gain and we lose.
Microsoft and other major U.S. employers have also faced
unprecedented difficulties in bringing the best and most
accomplished foreign nationals into our workplaces. Visa
appointment delays, repeat trips to consulates to provide
additional information, and inappropriate visa denials
increasingly hamper our efforts to recruit the most talented
possible work force.
These are pains I feel on an almost daily basis as I
coordinate technology transfers and collaboration between
Microsoft's 500 researchers around the world and its
development teams. Microsoft, of course, recognizes that
heightened vigilance in the immigration system is essential to
protect our national security. But at the same time, we must
protect the competitiveness of our national economy. But we can
have both secure borders and a visa process that gives
innovators the room to succeed.
Unfortunately, we are nowhere near where we should be.
Consider Chennai, India. The wait time there for an appointment
for any type of temporary visa is a staggering 163 days. The
pace of today's world simply does not provide 5 months of lead
time to wait for a visa appointment. Chennai is but one
example, and the difficulties with the visa process are often
the most pronounced in the very countries that are the most
critical to the future growth of Microsoft and other major U.S.
businesses.
Getting an appointment is only the first challenge in the
visa application process. Once a person is finally able to
apply, a whole new set of challenges begins, as I describe in
my written statement.
There are many ways to better balance protection and
prosperity in the visa process. For example, the United States
should increase dramatically the resources available for visa
interviews and processing. Streamline the decisionmaking
process, including requiring the agencies involved in the
security clearance process to act within a specific timeframe.
Establish a clear and uniform way to address business
emergencies, where circumstances do not permit visa
applications through normal wait times. And alter or eliminate
the automatic presumption of immigrant intent in Section 214(b)
of the INA.
The principal focus of this hearing is on the difficulties
that surround the process of getting a visa. The larger
problems we are discussing today stem equally from choices
about the supply of visas. The supply is nowhere near what is
needed. Just 3 weeks ago, Bill Gates came to Washington
expressly to discuss these urgent problems with Members of
Congress. Indeed, these are Congress's choices about visa
supply, and Congress can fix them. But let there be no doubt,
without reform American competitiveness will suffer. Other
countries will gain from the international talent that U.S.
employers cannot hire or retain. And it's crystal clear that
other countries are shaping their immigration policies to
attract this talent. U.S. employers will be forced to move
their functions to places where they can find or import the
highly skilled workers that they need.
I understand that the Senate is considering immigration
reform legislation that would provide real relief on these
issues but that the House immigration bill does not. Congress
must act to ensure that the Nation maintains both its security
and its intellectual and economic strength. The ability to
bring the best and brightest from around the world into this
country--to conduct business, to study, to join our work
force--is indispensable. Yet serious obstacles stand in the way
of that goal, many self-imposed.
Microsoft appreciates the committee's efforts to eliminate
these unnecessary obstacles wherever possible. And we stand
ready to work with you in any way that we can.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schofield follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Ms. Dickson.
STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH DICKSON
Ms. Dickson. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, good
morning. My name is Elizabeth Dickson. I manage the Global
Immigration Services function for Ingersoll-Rand Co., and
additionally I chair the Subcommittee on Immigration at the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce. My testimony today is on behalf of
both my company and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
I think everybody in this room understands the need for the
increased security initiatives. But America's trade
relationships and economic goals depend a great deal on the
ability of foreign customers to travel to the United States to
visit our manufacturing operations, to inspect products and
services they are purchasing, and to negotiate contracts.
Why is this important to us? It's important because our
foreign competitors will take business away from us if we do
not have a streamlined visa processing system that will enable
our current customers and potential customers to come to visit
us in the United States.
American companies such as Ingersoll-Rand are looking for
promising geographic regions to grow our business. For us, we
have identified the Asia Pacific and Latin American regions,
and we have expanded our presence in China, India, and Europe
over the recent years. Our chairman predicts that in 5 to 10
years, Ingersoll-Rand's annual business growth in East Asia
should increase by 20 percent as the company's business focuses
to that region.
We have had a substantial presence in China since 1922.
Likewise, 80 years ago we established Ingersoll-Rand India.
Today IR India has several manufacturing operations in India
and employs over 900 people.
We were greatly encouraged by the recent visit of President
Bush to India and the surrounding countries. He made it clear
that we have significant policy interests in the region and
that we should be doing more to promote the economic interests
of both countries through workable immigration and trade
policies.
We have also been encouraged by the improvements announced
in the Joint Vision: Secure Borders and Open Doors information
initiatives announced by Secretary of State Rice and Chertoff.
Obviously, the pre-screening partnership with the American
Chambers Abroad, the improved security advisory opinion
process, and the online visa appointment interviews have
helped. However, we continue to experience challenges at the
consulates, particularly in India. As some of the other
panelists have stated, 163 days to obtain an interview in
Chennai, Mumbai is at 162 days, New Delhi at 98. Mexico is at
least 100 days in most places. Brazil, a 92-day wait. Paris is
currently experiencing 116 days to obtain a visa appointment
because they no longer meet the biometric passport
requirements.
In addition to delays to getting an interview, processing
times to actually obtain the visa afterwards has increased to
up to a month in Mexico. So they wait 3 months or 4 months to
get a visa appointment and another month to get their passport
back and be able to travel.
The delays impact Ingersoll-Rand's business objectives most
severely in India and China. They have caused many of our
employees and managers to miss critical business meetings and
training sessions in the United States.
Additionally, the new process is to return all visas
through the mail. Typical processing days may take 3 to 5 days
for those passports to come back. But we have experienced
extremely sloppy processing, particularly at the consulate in
Chennai. And we have had errors in the visas or incorrect
interpretation of immigration law that have caused our
applicants to return to the consulate, sometimes two or three
times, to correct these errors. Our company has spent $40,000
in 2005 overcoming incorrect visas that have been issued in
India as well as trying to advance appointments at the
consulates.
Periodically we think things are improving in India, and
they identify that Ingersoll-Rand is an important company to
them and we are a familiar company. And then it just slips back
into the same treatment. Just recently we had another incorrect
application of 212(E), which is a J-1 visa restriction.
Incorrect visa restrictions can affect the employee's future
travel to the United States and can severely impact our
company's product design projects and future employment with
those people in the United States.
The Bureau of Consulate Affairs has encouraged business to
provide additional evidence to assist consular offices in
determining applicants' eligibility. We have actually
instituted an internal process whereby we provide additional
letters based on a questionnaire we send out to employees and
customers to actually pull together the business reason for the
travel, why the person qualifies as a business visitor under
the different criteria that are listed in the Foreign Affairs
manual, and also to help them establish their strong ties to
their home countries.
We have tried to work closely with the State Department and
the Chamber of Commerce particularly has been encouraged by the
Joint Initiative statement that has come out. But we would like
to see some sort of a trusted traveler program initiated, a
priority visa processing option at some of the consulates. We
feel expanded training for consular offices is really a
critical issue. And we need to find ways to reduce consular
delays sooner rather than later. We can't wait for a new
consulate in Hyderabad in 2008.
Additionally, I have outlined a number of things in my
testimony that are very specific, but one of the issues that I
would just like to raise here is renegotiating the issue of
reciprocity. If we can extend out the visas so that people have
the full period of duration for a visa and that they're not
constantly going back to the consulates to revalidate visas or,
you know, have further restrictions. For example, somebody in
China on an H-1B visa still only gets two entries in a 6-month
period. So if those things could be renegotiated, it would be
very helpful.
Additionally, the consulates are burdened by revalidating
visas, which now does require a personal appearance.
We're excited about the prospect of the creation of a
private-sector advisory committee to the Department of State
and we look forward to working with the State Department on
these various initiatives.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Dickson follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Well, thank you all very much.
I guess one of the issues that arise is our economy is very
globalized today. We have, you know, an old saying,
globalization is like a steamroller; you either get on board or
you are destined to become part of the pavement. We see that on
the technology side. I see that out in my district all the
time, where we have just a--it is a technology hub, and I hear
complaints about getting key people in and out. But today, for
the first time, we really understand that music and travel, I
think Forrest Gump would say it is like peas and carrots. I
mean, they just go together. And the fact that is not only
expensive, but that it is taking--where people are missing
performances and the like, and a lot of solo artists can't
afford to miss a performance. So that adds another dimension, I
think, and a sense of urgency to the kind of things that we are
trying to do.
Let me ask a couple of questions. First of all, let me
start, Mr. Ma and Ms. Gibson, with you.
Mr. Ma, in your testimony, you talk about the challenges
some of the Silk Road artists have faced in obtaining visas.
What is that financial burden on that individual in dealing
with the visa problem? Does it pose a financial burden as well?
Mr. Ma. I believe so. I think, obviously, some of the
burden is borne by the Silk Road Project, which is a nonprofit,
but I think the musicians that are coming are so eager to do
their work, are so passionate, that I think they will incur
costs to themselves that they will never even talk to us about.
And so I can't give you exact figures, but for the income that
they're getting in other countries, I would say that it's
actually a substantial amount of money for them.
Chairman Tom Davis. I mean, you heard Ms. Dickson testify,
and you understand that, you know, if you are Ingersoll-Rand or
you are a Microsoft or you are trying to get people, the State
Department understands that urgency of getting people into the
country if you are from a technology company. And there are
still problems even there where we have identified it. But for
you, compared to what many would consider to be the more
traditional businesses like the Microsofts or Ingersoll-Rand,
do you think that artists in general receive about the same,
more consideration, or less consideration when applying for a
visa?
Mr. Ma. I think that depends on which countries that
they're coming from. And I don't--I'm not an expert on your
part of the equation. But I would say that, as I was listening
to all of you testify, I would say that it's about the same.
Ms. Gibson. Echo the comments.
Mr. Ma. Yeah. We could be giving the same speech over and
over and over again.
Ms. Gibson. Absolutely.
Mr. Ma. And I think that's the same creativity issues,
innovation, that if we don't have those contacts, the people-
to-people contacts, I think we really suffer on the innovation
front.
Chairman Tom Davis. Well, let me zero in this way. You
travel all over the globe. Ms. Gibson, your artists travel all
over the globe. And you see the practices of a lot of other
different countries. In your opinion, are foreign travelers
choosing to visit other countries for business or pleasure
instead of coming here because of our security requirements?
And how do we stack up against other countries?
Ms. Gibson. Well, I'll take that as a first response.
That's absolutely the case. I travel myself regularly on behalf
of the association and the industry and at markets that are
business markets and arts markets all the time. And we are
finding out increasingly that artists, who would normally come
from abroad to the United States, are deciding not to come to
the United States. They don't look to the United States as an
open marketplace any longer. The visa process is very onerous
for them. In parts of the world networks are developing that
don't look to our culture as a standard bearer or marker for
the entire cultural and entertainment community. So this is
definitely happening.
And we have heard about a couple of countries discussing
reciprocity legislation that would, in some ways, restrict the
movement of U.S. artists abroad for the same kinds of
activities--which we certainly don't want to see.
Chairman Tom Davis. OK. I am here so I can keep going with
questions. I have a ton of questions.
Mr. Slater, how important are the trade shows that you put
together to the bottom line of the businesses that participate?
And are most of the participants small businesses or large
businesses?
Mr. Slater. The trade show industry, at least in the
equipment manufacturing industry, the United States has a very
strong position worldwide. You made a good point about large
versus small. The huge companies, the Caterpillars, Ingersoll-
Rands, they have the wherewithal to compete globally. But the
medium, small companies, which make up probably 80 percent of
our membership, the trade shows are their biggest marketing
opportunity every year. And if they can't bring customers to
that, they will not compete.
Chairman Tom Davis. You also, in your testimony, you talk
about a letter from the head of an Indian delegation to one of
your trade shows, which said, ``the U.S. embassy does not want
to promote business between the two countries.'' Have you been
able to respond to that businessman and offer him any hope that
things will be different at your next trade show?
Mr. Slater. Oh, yes, I think they understood that we came
to bat for them and so did the Department of Commerce. We hope
they'll come back again. But at the same time, as you work with
100 people in a delegation, you just don't know how many just
don't show up next time. I think that's our biggest concern.
The leader of the delegation we can address, but it's the 20,
30 people that won't even, you know, come to the table or come
with us next time.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Schofield, you represent one of the
largest companies in the world. Certainly the brand name,
Microsoft, is ubiquitous. You quite correctly note in your
testimony that a 160-day wait for a visa interview, just for
the interview, is just totally unacceptable in today's business
environment. To what extent can Microsoft leverage IT to
mitigate this and reduce the need for in-person interaction
with foreign employees? Any thoughts on the technology to be
able to do that?
I mean, a lot of the work today is not being done in
offices anymore or face-to-face, particularly on repeats. You
get someone that has had a visa and maybe it is expired. Any
thoughts on that?
Mr. Slater. I think that there are a lot of opportunities
there. You know, one of the frustrations for us, and I
mentioned in my testimony, the unpredictability of this
process. And we understand that there certainly needs to be
time for the State Department to do background checks between
the time an application is filed and the time an interview
happens. There's no transparency to us on the outside about
what actually happens there. And for national security reasons,
I certainly understand why there certainly will never be
complete transparency. That makes perfect sense to me as an
American citizen that there are good security reasons for that.
So it's hard for me to tell you, sort of, without knowing
the exact details of how that process works, how much IT could
help there. There's clearly opportunities for IT to help there,
particularly since the consular offices are spread around the
globe. There's opportunities for IT to provide better
communications, to streamline those communications, to move
information to the places where it needs to be faster.
If I can actually come back to the question you asked Mr.
Slater about the importance of trade shows. I would just want
to add from my point of view, working with the larger computing
industry and the research community worldwide, trade shows and
conferences are super important for us and they're important
for the academic research community as well. Literally in the
United States there are hundreds of research and industry
conferences put on every year and they attract the best and
brightest of those people to the United States to participate
in those conversations and help to advance the state-of-the-
art. They're absolutely the central part of the innovation
process in my industry as well.
So beyond just sort of the trade show part, there's a
larger set of conferences that it's super important for us to
make sure that we keep healthy and that we can attract the
right people from around the world to them.
Chairman Tom Davis. Well, let me also ask about the visa
denials, because we know it's a long queue. Mr. Schofield, you
talked about the unpredictability, and I took that two ways.
One, unpredictability because you don't know how long it is
going to take just for your interview. You never know. You
build in 30 days or 40 days and it may take twice that. But
also, unpredictability as to the result. Do you find that the
results are random? And I don't know if anybody has had the
experience with just why was somebody denied here or there. Our
office gets it because I have a lot of foreign-born people in
my district. And you always have relatives trying to come over
for graduations, weddings, funerals, those kind of things. You
know, with a funeral, you don't get 60 days, you don't get 120
days. You need to come right in. And it has been almost
embarrassing sometimes dealing with our embassies trying to
move people ahead and get that sense of urgency, and then
sometimes the denials that come forward.
Now, on the other hand, you have to recognize that if one
wrong person gets in here and does something evil, that they
are going to go back and everybody is going to be questioned
who was in the queue. So we understand the need to balance all
of that. We have been pretty successful the last 3\1/2\ years.
Have you seen the random nature of visa denials, any of
you? Does anyone want to comment on that?
Mr. Schofield. I have seen exactly that. I can give you an
example. Every March we have a large internal trade show where
we roll out all of our best research prototypes to share with
the rest of the company. It is the single biggest event that
our research organization does every year. We pick the
technology prototypes in November so that we have 4 months to
get visa applications in and processed for all the people we
are bringing from our labs in Cambridge, England, from China,
from India. And 3 months later we find out that some number of
them have been denied for unspecified reasons. And we can never
predict which of them it will be. This is a huge frustration.
It is a huge problem for us because then we end up scrambling
at the last minute to try to find somebody else who could
actually give that demonstration and represent it to the rest
of our company.
Chairman Tom Davis. And let me ask our artists, are you
experiencing the same problems?
Ms. Gibson. It's the same. It's the same with ensembles
coming in. We even had a case----
Chairman Tom Davis. You have a string quartet and three
members show up?
Ms. Gibson. This happened to Lincoln Center a couple of
years ago. They had an entire performance group coming from
Iran, for Tazieh, and a half-dozen of the performers couldn't
come through at the last minute. It has happened with Mexico.
We had a case with our own--we produce the largest
international performing arts marketplace and trade show in New
York. And a year ago, we had a young woman with her delegation
from China. And we actually wrote to our embassy in Shanghai to
find out what had happened. They wouldn't tell her, but they
did tell us, that she wasn't convincing enough in her interview
that she would return to her country.
And we learned that the Kennedy Center, with their China
Festival this year, they had a number of visas that came
through, hundreds, but two denials were for two young unmarried
women who, in their interviews, could not convince the
interviewer that they would return home.
Now, we've taken the opportunity to ask in a couple of
cases, but the artists can never find that out. And it is
random, seemingly.
Mr. Ma. I have one example of a composer from Kyrgyzstan
who actually has performed at the Washington Mall during the
Folklife Festival. He was commissioned by Carnegie Hall to
write a composition. And of course he couldn't--at the last
moment, his visa was denied. And since he's also a performer,
the composition, obviously, suffered greatly and, I think, as
his reputation has also suffered, because if you--you know, you
have a chance to do something and you don't come through--it's
not his fault--but that also affects him very much.
And there are other examples, where I think we would be
performing at Millennium Park in Chicago, but because we know--
this is in June--we know the visa process from Mongolia takes
so long, we could not even consider inviting one person who
would be absolutely crucial for that event.
Chairman Tom Davis. As you talk to artists around the
world, is there anything--I mean, is there one thing about the
U.S. visa system that is most disturbing to them? I mean, can
you----
Mr. Ma. Well, I think dignity is a huge issue that I think
we're all talking about. I know there are rules and they're
many and you're in the process of thinking through them, and
the costs. But I think, for so many people who are here to
actually generously share their traditions and their knowledge
and their thinking, to them to be thwarted in a less----
Chairman Tom Davis. We ought to be rolling out the red
carpet for these people.
Mr. Ma. Well, the thing is that, you know, the lines that
people go through and the security checks that, I think, for
the frequent visitors are such that in fact many of our
friends--they still come, but I think there are certainly many
people that decide that they don't want to. They would prefer
not to.
Chairman Tom Davis. I have a couple of other questions. Mr.
Slater, you had to go to the Department of Commerce a couple of
times. Does that move you up the queue? How effective is that,
when they get involved?
Mr. Slater. Well, it's been effective. The problem is with
a small staff--we only have 50 people in our office--it's very
difficult for us to keep an eye on all the countries we're
trying to promote in. We've been very successful in China, but
not as successful when we get to India. I guess we've been in
the International Buyer Program now for our trade shows for 20
years, and that does help.
Chairman Tom Davis. Ms. Dickson, you testified that visa
delays impact Ingersoll's business most severely in India and
China, the two fastest growing countries in the world.
Ms. Dickson. It's where our business is, it's been
identified as target markets for us.
Chairman Tom Davis. Could this prompt Ingersoll to begin
locating such events outside the United States in an effort to
bypass the visa problem?
Ms. Dickson. Well, I think it's very important for
everybody to understand that most of our manufacturing is here
in the United States right now. Half of our manufacturing
plants are here. However, we are a global company and we do
have manufacturing operations around the world. If we want to
keep jobs in America and manufacturing in America and export
those products around the world, we have to allow our customers
easy access to come in and visit our plants and actually be
able to see our product. If not, they could be manufactured
other places. That's not our intent at this time. Our intent is
to enable our businesses to come to America. All our sector
headquarters are in America and we like that easy access for
our customers.
Chairman Tom Davis. In your testimony, you talked about the
challenges Ingersoll trainees in the J-1 Exchange Visitor
Program face in traveling from Bangalore to the consulate in
Chennai.
Ms. Dickson. That's correct. It's a 9-hour trip. And our
exchange program is a training program. And just as they were
saying about people who are young and unmarried, lots of times
those are our new hires, who are fairly young, may not be
married, may not own a home, may not be able to really
establish those strong ties to their home country for the
consular officer. However, the Ingersoll-Rand program has been
up and operating for 20 years. In 20 years time, we have never
had one person come to the United States and not return to
their home country or region. It is a condition for being part
of the program.
Chairman Tom Davis. The President recently announced the
location of a new consulate in Hyderabad. What impact will this
have on Ingersoll-Rand, and do you support the decision to put
it in Hyderabad versus Bangalore?
Ms. Dickson. I wanted Bangalore.
Chairman Tom Davis. How about you, Mr. Schofield? You have
more business in Bangalore, don't you?
Mr. Schofield. We have facilities in both Bangalore and
Hyderabad. We actually have a larger facility in Hyderabad.
Chairman Tom Davis. OK. You probably need them both places.
Mr. Schofield. We need it in both places. We're happy to
see this move by the State Department. And we hope that, as
part of this, they seriously address the staffing issues in the
consular offices.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you.
Ms. Dickson. And there may be some other options as well. I
know they're starting this pilot program, that they're going to
videotape and try to do the consular interviews in that manner.
I was at a recent conference and they suggested that actually
requires more personnel because they're setting up two
different offices.
However, if you could somehow set up smaller offices around
and do something like that, be able to take the biometrics and
do the interview that way, or go to some sort of a pre-
submission of the documents and be able to, before the person
comes in to the interview, have a review of those documents so
that when they actually get there, it's the last step.
Chairman Tom Davis. You know, you will probably always have
some unpredictability to this process. You will probably get
some random--you get that in everything. But a 160 day wait,
inexcusable.
Ms. Dickson. Ridiculous.
Chairman Tom Davis. Ninety days is inexcusable.
Particularly in a global economy, where things are moving at
warp speed and the competition doesn't put up the same
restraints. So finding that balance is important. But hearing
these stories, I think, helps us as we formulate our next
activity up here, and I want to thank this panel for adding a
lot to this hearing today.
Thank you very much.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
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