Assistant Secretary Harty's Remarks at the 56th Annual Conference of NAFSA Luncheon

Remarks of Maura Harty
Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs
Before the 56th Annual Conference of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, Luncheon
May 27, 2004

I believe it is more important than ever that responsible citizens become familiar with what their government is doing to ensure their safety and security in the war on terrorism. We need to work together. I am here today to assure you that although security must always be our first priority, we are committed to minimizing the impact of new procedures on legitimate travelers.

The two primary responsibilities of every Consular officer are assistance to American citizens abroad and protection of our borders. Both of these very broad mandates have become even more important in the post-9/11 world.

The very visible function of adjudicating visa applications of foreign nationals seeking admission to the United States is our topic of interest today. But I would be remiss if I didn't say a brief word about the other things we do.

Consular Officers deal with issues that people really care about: citizenship, birth, death, marriage, adoption, illness, arrest, disputes with authorities, disasters, travel, voting and child custody. We also adjudicate some seven million passport applications annually for U.S. citizens who travel abroad. We make decisions and take actions that often form key turning points in people's lives. We know that the visa function is a part of that equation. As Consular Officers overseas in over 200 embassies and consulates, we push the very borders of the United States out far beyond our nation's physical limits to try and spot questionable or dangerous travelers well before they reach our borders.

Since the horrific attacks of September 11, we have introduced unprecedented changes to the visa process. Our efforts have been and will continue to be under close scrutiny by Congress and the general public.

In my plenary speech I tried to outline some of those process changes we've made. I also hope that I established how committed we are to what I believe are common goals.

Since those attacks of September 11, we in the Department of State have received a number of letters from representatives of U.S. higher education about visa issues. We have also seen newspaper articles and editorials, and a recent NAFSA press release. The common theme in these letters and media items is criticism of our visa process. This criticism worries me because I think it reflects some misunderstandings that may result in misdirected energies.

I will be the first to admit that many applicants for student visas experienced unacceptable delays and difficulties during the summer of 2002. I suppose that is easy for me to acknowledge, since I had not yet started in this job at that point, but the fact is that summer 2002 was the first summer student-visa season since 9/11, and by that time, we had made some changes, particularly in Washington-based interagency review of certain applications, that resulted in long delays and missed classes for many students. The implementation of these changes was rocky at first – and it took some time to make improvements.

When I began this job in November 2002, the biggest scream factor in my inbox related to visa screening delays. We worked extremely hard at improving our technology, our communications, and our processes, in order to make visa screening both thorough and efficient. By summer 2003, I think that most of you who work closely with foreign students must have seen that things were better (and I expect that you will see further improvements this summer).

I have to admit some level of frustration as I have seen that anecdotes about horrendous visa delays not only seem to drown out the true story – that tens of thousands of students got their visas in time; they also seem to diminish very little with the passage of time. Frequently, when I hear about a visa problem, and I bore in on the specifics, I find that the complainant has few or no recent examples to cite, but only old, often second-hand, anecdotes. My remedy? To keep striving for ever greater efficiencies and to talk to as many audiences such as yours as I possibly can.

We do have what we all consider a serious problem, in that new applications from foreign students to study in the U.S. are down. The reasons for that are complex and I do not believe are solely visa-related. In fact the drop in student visa applications since 9/11 is about 22 percent worldwide, compared to a 31 percent drop in other types of visa applications. Tourist travel has declined more than student travel. All of these numbers are a source of concern. But let me give you good figures in case you weren't at the earlier talk. Last year we adjudicated just over seven million non-immigrant visas. Of that group of people, some 2.2 percent required a special Washington, DC-based name check. Last year that process averaged two months. Today, 80 percent of these clearances are completed within three weeks – and we're working hard on the remaining 20 percent of that 2.2% who require special checks.

I am sure that many foreign prospective students have worries about the visa process, driven by the same kind of anecdotes that we have all heard. That is why I think it is very important to fully describe the situation.

Let me offer an example. A May 25 article in the Stanford Report is headlined “Stanford's International Students Share Tales of Visa Hell.” The article opens with the story of a visa applicant who applied on May 13 and may miss a May 31 scientific meeting in the U.S., due to a visa processing delay. Do I wish he had applied earlier and given us a bit more time? Of course I do. But we read that story and issued the visa yesterday. Going back for a moment to the Stanford article, a Stanford official says that “more than 90 percent of Stanford's international students are granted visas without delay” and “of about 900 new international graduate students admitted each fall, five at most suffer outright visa denial”.

I hope that you as members of NAFSA will acknowledge that there is in fact a lot of improvement in what we are doing in visa processing. I was in India last week, visiting three of our major visa-adjudicating posts. I felt that I needed to kick the tires myself, so I could come here and speak honestly, and with recent field perspective. On my first day there, Ambassador David Mulford had published an op-ed piece in the New Delhi newspaper, the Economic Times. I have copies for any of you who might be interested. Ambassador Mulford and I talked at length about our mutual desire to encourage Indian prospective students. He forwarded the op-ed to 50 presidents of American universities – including some of your institutions. He made the point, in a cover letter to those university presidents, that while we in the U.S. government are doing everything we can to demonstrate our desire to welcome and facilitate their legitimate travel to the U.S., we can not do it all. Higher education is an internationally competitive field. As one small example, the British have put up a billboard saying “Study in the U.K.” right in front of our Consulate General in Chennai, India. I spoke to a group of 200 Indian students there, and visited the American International School of Chennai, whose students are all college-bound. Their interest in the U.S. was unmistakable. But if all they hear is that the U.S. visa process is broken, they may decide to try another country instead. And that, for our nation, is a serious loss.

I'm not at all trying to stifle criticism. In fact, I use the anecdotes I hear as indicators so I can know where we might still have systemic challenges that I need to address.

I would like to ask your help. When you are interacting with foreign students, please consider pointing out that our approval rate for student visas has not gone down, and our laws on qualifying for a visa have not changed. It is true that we have instituted a number of procedural changes. These changes are, in essence, designed to get to know the applicant better, before we let him or her into the country. It's like making sure you know the person before you invite them into your home. We know that the vast majority of applicants are well-intentioned, legitimate travelers, and the additional information we are collecting will help us to verify that. We hope that the few persons who might pose a security threat will be deterred or detected in this process. We have an almost sacred duty to contribute to our nation's safety and well-being. But when we make it safer for Americans, we make it safer for everyone here.

It is really not much different from the changes in airline travel. Almost everyone is going to get on his or her plane, but we all need to allow some extra time, and to be prepared to take our shoes off, or answer some additional questions, for the sake of everyone's security.

On my way home from India this past Friday, as I was boarding a plane for the U.S. in Amsterdam, a screener spotted my small Swiss army knife in my carry-on bag. I had forgotten to put it in my checked baggage. I had carried that pocketknife for over 20 years. It had sentimental value, but I was wrong, so I had to give it up. That's my anecdote. However, you will not hear me criticizing the alert screener who spotted a proscribed item. I appreciated her professionalism. And I felt safe on that plane, knowing that they take security seriously. In so many ways, our world has changed. But rest assured that we at the State Department are working hard every day to lessen the possible deterrent factors of those changes.

We who work in diplomacy, and you in academia, are natural allies. We both dedicate ourselves to advancing international understanding. It is not necessarily easy, but it is great and important work. Thank you for what you do, and for your support and understanding.

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