... in response to Moscow Times Article on visa delay, posted by wilmc on Oct 14, 2002ASHINGTON, Oct. 12 — A global slowdown in the issuing of American visas to foreigners is disrupting lives in the United States and abroad. It is interfering with scientific research and business deals, forcing some people to postpone medical treatment and weddings and stranding others away from their homelands, say government officials and advocates for immigrants.
As part of sweeping changes in government rules after the attacks of Sept. 11, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are comparing all visa applications against lists of criminals or terrorism suspects. As a result, visa applications are being delayed all over the world, not just in Muslim countries where many applicants, especially young men, have been required to undergo especially detailed reviews.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell recently voiced concern about the delays in a private meeting with lawmakers.
In an embarrassing episode in July, the State Department was forced to cancel about 100 visas that had already been issued — and in some cases used to enter the United States — after the F.B.I. reported that the names had raised concerns. Since then, visa delays have increased greatly.
Consular officials declined to comment on the extent of the problem, except to say that their abrupt release of 10,000 visas last month was an attempt to clear the backlog.
Some applicants have been waiting for months after clearance of their visas by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which normally takes 100 days to approve petitions for visas. Visas are issued by the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the State Department after applicants have cleared security investigations.
"The fact is there are some national security reviews going on for visas," said Stuart Patt, a spokesman for the consular affairs bureau. "Some people are being inconvenienced by it, but the interests of the country are such that we must have visas reviewed by the law enforcement agencies."
The delays have been especially pronounced in China and Russia, even though their citizens have not been linked to the Sept. 11 attacks.
For example, a Chinese scientist who played a role in a recent breakthrough in AIDS research is unable to return to the biotech company in Fremont, Calif., where he works until he clears a new security review. The scientist, Siyu Fu, who has lived in the United States for more than three years, has been told to prepare for a wait of up to three months in Switzerland, where he traveled in September for what he thought would be a routine business trip, said his lawyer, Lisa Spiegel.
Universities like Michigan State are fretting over the loss of Chinese students and teaching assistants who have missed the start of the term.
"In a place like Moscow, things get gummed up pretty quickly," said Lisa Choate, a spokeswoman for American Councils, a nonprofit group that arranges student exchanges financed by the State Department. Three groups of high school students missed their visits because their visas were not ready.
"We spend endless hours just trying to figure out what to do and how to do it," Ms. Choate said.
The delays have stymied Kip Thorne, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, who is part of a wide effort to prove Einstein's general theory of relativity. His Russian colleague, Vladimir Braginsky, who has visited the United States regularly over three decades, has been waiting since July for a visa to collaborate on the billion-dollar taxpayer-financed project involving 13 nations.
Despite many calls to officials in Washington, Professor Thorne said, Dr. Braginsky "has been left hanging for three months" without any information on the status of his visa.
"It is a great embarrassment to me, as an American citizen, to have to tell my foreign colleagues of this situation when they inquire about Braginsky," Professor Thorne said,
John Lanzetta, a financial planner in Swedesboro, N.J., is still waiting for his fiancée, who is in Moscow. Her visa was cleared by the immigration service in August, pending a security review.
"Emotionally, it's just draining," said Mr. Lanzetta, who says is phone bills are $1,000 a month as he tries to console his Siberian-born fiancée, Lyudmilla Chernyakhovskaya.
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Officials say the security agencies, the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., are overwhelmed by the requests for visa security checks at a time when they are scrambling to update their watch lists of suspected terrorists. The watch lists include a database known as Tipoff that contains more than 80,000 names, with 2,000 more names being added every month. The security agencies workloads have surged 455 percent since Sept. 11, Chris Kojm, a State Department intelligence official, recently said at the joint Congressional inquiry into the attacks.
Troubled by previous lapses and confused about its role in the process, the C.I.A. lowered its criteria for placing applicants on the list, swelling the pool of suspects, according to a report last month by Eleanor Hill, the staff director of the Congressional inquiry.
"Tipoff is not adequately staffed to handle the increased workload," Ms. Hill said at a hearing of the joint committee. She added that the program's staff members — 11 full-time workers and a few part-time workers — are called upon "after hours, nights, weekends, wee hours."
In the July incident in which about 100 visas were canceled, consular officials declined to discuss the operation or say whether, under closer scrutiny, the F.B.I. concerns led to searches or arrests.
After that, consular officials imposed a rule that no more visas be granted without the explicit approval of the security agencies, officials said. In the past, the State Department gave the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. 30 days to raise objections to a visa applicant, then processed the request as though the applicant had been cleared.
Some foreigners interested in coming to the United States seem to have given up on getting visas. In the last two months, State Department revenues from visa applications have fallen by 30 percent, officials said. Faced with a budget shortage, the department is planning to raise its fees to $100 from $60 for processing nonimmigrant visas.
Some applicants have sought to speed up their initial petitions for a visa by paying $1,000 for premium processing. By paying that fee, business executives, high-tech workers and performers have managed to shorten their wait at the hands of the immigration service to two weeks from 100 days, but they still must face the security reviews.
"The cumulative effect of all these measures is to discourage people from coming here," said Jonathan Ginsburg, a Virginia immigration lawyer who was briefed this week by consular officials. At some point, Mr. Ginsburg added, one has to ask: "Well, gee, isn't this going to have an effect on the overall economy?"
Consular officials acknowledge that they are taking few chances. Their bureau faced fierce criticism over the past year after the disclosure that 15 of the Sept. 11 hijackers had been granted visas to enter the United States, three of them without being interviewed by a consular official. The assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, Mary A. Ryan, was forced to resign, and her example weighs heavily on her former employees, officials say.
"If one of these other agencies comes in late and we've already issued the visa, who's going to be faulted for not caring about national security?" asked one State Department official. "It's going to be the visa officer, the State Department."
As it stands, the department would lose much of its visa-granting powers to President Bush's proposed Department of Homeland Security. Under the White House plan, the new department would set the guidelines and hold the legal authority for issuing visas, leaving the State Department's consular corps to carry out the paperwork.
The State Department last year issued 5.7 million nonimmigrant visas of all types.
Now, stranded travelers, their loved ones and colleagues are beginning to clog the e-mail systems and fax machines on Capitol Hill with complaints.
"There are all kinds of problems," said one Senate aide who works on immigration. "It's affecting a lot of legitimate travelers."
Some lawmakers have interceded on behalf of high-profile applicants. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, recently manage to free visas for Russian hockey players so they could join the Dallas Stars, aides said.
"We regularly help people who have legitimate concerns, who are not security risks," said Lisette Mondello, the senator's spokeswoman.
But celebrity is not a guarantee. In September, Chucho Valdes, the Cuban jazz pianist, missed a chance to accept his first Latin Grammy. He was among 22 Cuban nominees who could not get visas that would have allowed them to attend the Los Angeles ceremony.
Responding to the outcry over that incident, the State Department late last month suddenly released the 10,000 visas to applicants that were being reviewed under the Visas Condor program, a security check for foreign students, business people and certain other travelers. Once the system is functioning properly, officials said, security delays will be reduced to one month.
