[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/ index.html http://www.house.gov/reform ______ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 27-512 WASHINGTON : 2006 _____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800 Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001 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:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.003 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:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.004 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.005 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.006 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:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.007 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.008 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.009 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.010 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.011 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.012 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.013 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.014 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.015 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:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.016 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.017 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.018 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.019 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.020 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.021 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.022 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.023 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.024 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.025 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.026 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.027 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.028 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.029 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.030 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.031 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.032 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.033 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.034 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:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.035 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.036 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.037 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:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.038 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.039 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.040 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.041 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.042 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.043 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.044 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.045 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.046 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.047 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.048 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.049 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.050 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.051 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:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.052 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.053 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.054 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.055 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.056 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.057 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.058 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.059 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.060 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.061 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.062 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:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.063 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.064 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.065 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.066 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.067 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.068 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.069 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.070 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.071 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.072 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.073 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.074 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.104 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.105 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:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.075 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.077 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.078 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.079 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.080 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.081 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.082 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.083 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.084 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.085 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.086 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7512.087 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. 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