Assistant Secretary Harty's Remarks to the Houston World Affairs Council

I am very happy to be here today and to have this opportunity to speak to you about the efforts that the State Department, and particularly the Bureau of Consular Affairs, are making to balance the needs of national security, legitimate travel and immigration: the policy that Secretary Powell often refers to as a balance between “Secure Borders and Open doors.”

I believe it is more important than ever that responsible citizens become familiar with what their government is doing to ensure their safety, security and prosperity in the war on terrorism. We need your support.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “with public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.”

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.

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 make decisions and take actions that often form key turning points in people’s lives.

The volume and scope of services provided by consular employees abroad is large, and the work environment often not ideal. Nevertheless, our work must be accomplished with courtesy, efficiency and due consideration for U.S. interests and the needs of the public.

Everyone who has business with any of our embassies, consulates or passport agencies is entitled to a dignified experience. As I often remind new, and even experienced officers: it may be their 35th interview of the day, but it is the first for the person they are interviewing. It may also be one of the first times that customers ever talked with an American official. The image of our country can be burnished, one person at a time.

One of the most visible functions of consular sections abroad is adjudicating visa applications of foreign nationals seeking admission to the United States for temporary visits or for permanent residence. We are a nation of immigrants and it is our proud responsibility as consular officers to execute immigration law by issuing visas to legitimate travelers and denying visas to those who simply do not qualify under current U.S. law or who we believe might be intent on doing this nation harm. Naturally, it is a responsibility we take quite seriously. As consular officers overseas in over 200 embassies and consulates, we push the very borders of the United States out far beyond our own physical limits as a nation to try and spot questionable or dangerous travelers well before they reach our borders.

Having said this, I want to assure you as well that we are aware of the interests many stakeholders have in facilitating legitimate travel to the U.S. We share that goal. We continue to work with other agencies of the U.S. government on procedures that are transparent and predictable specifically so that legitimate travel will be facilitated.

Although security must always be our first priority, we are committed to minimizing the impact of new procedures on legitimate travelers. Right now, we are engaged in a global effort to enroll biometrically scanned fingerprints of all visa applicants as mandated by Congress. This will allow us to work more closely with U.S. law enforcement so that we can identify and impede the travel of imposters, known criminals, and possible terrorists.

We are doing so in a manner that is quick, efficient, and non-intrusive to the traveler. In fact, feedback from posts indicates that much of the traveling public sees these new requirements as enhancing their security, not just ours. We must never forget that more than 90 nations lost citizens in the September 11 attacks. When we make our nation safer for Americans, we are also making it safer for those who would come here to enjoy what our country has to offer.

We have also invested significant money and time in our namecheck system so that we can move visa applicants more quickly through the interagency clearance process, which has been a source of frustration and delays for students and researchers among others. I think we are making real progress in this regard. For instance, a recently published GAO study that reviewed wait times for students and scholars who require special clearances indicated that it took an average of two months to get a visa last year. In the intervening months, we have made several adjustments and cut that time dramatically. Today, some 80 percent of such applicants receive their clearances within three weeks. We are not yet where we want to be…. but we are committed to continuing to improve our business processes to facilitate the travel of students, scholars, and all other legitimate travelers.

Additionally, we have recently increased to one year the validity of the clearance granted to certain scientists and scholars returning to participate in the same program. This enables travelers with a need for repeated visits to do so without returning each time to an embassy or consulate to solicit a new visa. We have also established a scientific related point of contact regarding the visa process.

I have asked consular sections worldwide to establish dedicated interview windows for student visa applicants to speed up their processing so that students don’t miss school. Feedback from many students and advisors at universities indicates that this, too, has been helpful.

America’s superb academic and medical institutions are among our largest exporters of complex, high-value services. To say nothing of the good will they engender. We hear and understand their concerns. I will never stop working to address the visa processing issues that affect them.

I want to assure you as well that I believe the very definition of national security must include consideration of our economy and the impact our actions may have on it. I know that the U.S. travel and tourism industry is a vital segment of the U.S. economy and one of our largest earners of foreign exchange. Last year, approximately 42 million foreign visitors – whether here for pleasure, work, or study -- spent $83.5 billion on travel to the U.S., compared to $78 billion spent by Americans abroad. Foreign visitors generated $93.2 billion in local, state and federal tax revenue.

The travel and tourism industry is one of America’s biggest employers, with 24.2 million direct and indirect travel-related jobs, and a combined payroll of $157 billion. One of every eight people in the U.S. civilian labor force is employed in some segment of the travel and tourism industry.

We work every day with business, industry, the academic community and the general public to see that access to our country is not impeded for those whose presence we encourage and value.

Consular affairs has an active outreach effort to the business, academic, and scientific community, as well as sports-related and other organizations. A key message is to encourage advance planning and early visa application. A number of years ago we established a conference organizer point of contact to provide information about visa procedures.

We are frequently in contact with U.S. conference organizers, specifically within the scientific community regarding conferences to be held in the U.S. We have found that the meeting or conference organizer is an important conduit in providing appropriate guidance to visa applicants.

One example of overseas outreach is our embassy in Beijing. Beijing has conducted several on-line webchats dealing with visa issues, and has also visited a number of Chinese universities. One recent webchat received over 16,000 hits.

Here at home, we are frequently on the road, speaking to immigration attorney groups, local and national chambers of commerce, foreign-based high school counselors, intensive English programs and other educational groups on the visa process.

I would welcome your ideas on additional outreach.

The Consular Affairs Bureau does a lot more than visas. We are also responsible for passports and emergency and non-emergency services to Americans traveling and living abroad.

In fact, service to American citizens abroad is the most critical of all our consular functions. Our performance in this vital area is a measure by which we are often judged – and rightly so-- especially on Capitol Hill and in the media, but most importantly by the public we serve.

When American citizens seek assistance in an embassy abroad, they may be suffering through some of the most difficult moments of their lives. They need a helping hand, and a kind word.

If asked, most consular officers would probably say they went into government service – and especially consular work -- because it was an opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives.

I was very moved, recently, to read an account by a first-tour consular officer, of his experience dealing with the aftermath of the terrorist bombing in Bali on August 5, 2002. After traveling a thousand miles from the Embassy in Jakarta, he spent day and night working with local authorities to identify American citizen victims and aid their grieving families. It was something he never dreamed he would be doing, but it turned out, as he said, to be the most inspiring experience of his life.

Another goal to which we are wholely dedicated is reuniting American citizen parents with their children who have been taken to foreign countries by their foreign parent in contravention of an existing U.S. court order. This is heartbreaking work and it is hard. The highs, when we get a child home, are very high. The lows challenge us to keep trying relentlessly to achieve our goal.

It makes me proud to do this work and to lead a service-oriented, dedicated and compassionate team all over the world. They bring their skills and sense of service to all of our efforts, whether we are helping American citizens in distress or adjudicating visitor or immigrant visa applications.

Let me now turn briefly to the subject of the U.S. passport, which I firmly believe is the world’s most valuable identity and travel document. No country in the world does more to help its citizens in need abroad, and your passport to travel is also the key to those services, should you ever need us. Since it is also primary evidence of U.S. citizenship, many, many attempts to counterfeit or fraudulently alter it over the years have been made by individuals who aspire to live in this country. Keeping it secure, and tamper-resistant is also, for us, a full time concern.

Our latest efforts to improve the U.S. passport began in the late 1990’s with the introduction of photodigitization technology to take advantage of the many improvements in digital technology during the last decade. Through this process, the bearer’s photo is actually a part of the passport, not an image glued into place. As a result of this improvement, the number of credible alterations to the U.S. passport has plummeted.

But, as good as photo-digitization is, it is not the end of our efforts. Our next step is to introduce embedded biometrics into the U.S. passport through the insertion of a contact-less chip, which will store biometric and biographic data including a digital photo.

Embedding enhanced biometrics into passports so that a clear link can be established between the authorized bearer of that passport and the user is an important step forward in the international effort to strengthen border security. It will also expedite inspection at U.S. ports of entry when you are returning from a trip abroad.

Now a word about foreign passports, if I might. The Border Security Act set October 26, 2004 as the date when travelers from 27 countries who currently enjoy visa-free travel privileges to the United States who bear passports issued on or after that date must have passports that contain biometrics (digital photos) in order to continue visa-free travel to the United States. We refer to this visa-free travel as the Visa Waiver Program, and it is of critical importance to the facilitation of travel to this country.

For example in FY-2001, a total of 16 ½ million people entered the U.S. under the VWP; in FY-2002, the number decreased 20.2% to approximately 13 million.

In 2000, the most recent data available to me, travelers from Visa Waiver countries spent an estimated $39.6 billion in the U.S., accounting for 57 percent of overseas tourist spending. They spent, on average, $2,253 in the U.S., compared to $1,274 per individual traveler from other destinations. Direct and indirect spending within the U.S. by VWP travelers added between $75 billion and $102 billion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product in 2000, and generated $16 billion in tax revenues.

I mention all of the above because many countries in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) have indicated that they will be unable to meet that legislatively mandated deadline of October 26, 2004.

While all are making varying degrees of progress toward complying with the requirement, only one or two countries may have production capability in place on time. As a result, U.S. embassies and consulates abroad may face large increases in the number of visa applications they will need to process.

I wanted to make you aware of these issues in some detail because you will hear about it in the news in the coming weeks and months. We are working hard now to find a solution that meets U.S. security needs, congressional concerns, and the need to facilitate travel to this country by legitimate travelers, who are so important to this nation

I’d like your help.

As we continue to improve our service and work to project a welcoming image of America, I would like to recruit you all and ask that you look at yourselves as citizen diplomats. In each of your respective endeavors, you are in a unique position to project the America we all know and to share that image with foreign interlocutors in business, academia and every other area in which you encounter foreign visitors.

You show your visitors who Americans really are, how we conduct our businesses, how we raise our children and play a part in the life of our communities. And in so doing, you not only give your visitors a taste of what life is like here, but hopefully an example they can bring to their families and associates in their own countries.

Together, we need to present what we all know to be true: that America is a welcoming place; that we want foreign visitors and business people and academics here; that we know we are richer as a nation when we welcome diversity and a free exchange of ideas.

In this post 9/11 era, we need a solid partnership between government and business if we are to succeed in making our country safer while staying true to our heritage as a welcoming nation.

For our own well being as a country, and because we have so much to give, we must keep our doors open to the world. We must facilitate legitimate travel while striking the delicate balance between Secure Borders and Open Doors of which I have spoken today.

I appreciate your interest in this important subject and I thank you for the opportunity to be here today with all of you.

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