STATEMENT OF
ASSISTANT SECRETARY MARY A. RYAN
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND CLAIMS
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 10, 2000
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to give the views of the Department of State on the nonimmigrant visa waiver program. Although still officially designated as a "pilot," the program is more than eleven years old. During that time it has provided all of the benefits I believe Congress intended: increased travel, tourism, and business for the American economy; enhanced relations with participating countries; and greater efficiency and productivity for the Department.
Mr. Chairman, in 1998 the travel and tourism industry was once again the nation's leading services export. According to travel industry data, 46.4 million foreign visitors to the United States generated $91.3 billion in direct expenditures and contributed $18.7 billion to the industry's trade surplus that year. These visitors directly sustained one million jobs for working Americans and indirectly supported millions more. Eighty-eight per cent of all overseas arrivals from the top ten inbound markets in 1998 were from countries in the visa waiver program. The most recent statistics from the Immigration and Naturalization Service reflect that 17 million foreign nationals entered under the VWPP, accounting for 55 per cent of all business and pleasure travelers. In addition to stimulating tourism and commerce, the waiver program has allowed the Department of State to deploy scarce resources much more efficiently. The integrity of the nonimmigrant visa issuance system has been greatly enhanced by our ability to re-direct those resources to better equip and train our personnel.
While recognizing that some adjustments may be desirable, the overall view of the Department of State is that this program has been and will continue to be an enormous success. Therefore, I would ask that you give serious consideration to renewing this program for multiple years, or even making this extremely beneficial program a permanent part of our immigration system.
The waiver program, known officially as the "Visa Waiver Pilot Program (VWPP)," was enacted into law in 1986. In 1988, the United Kingdom and Japan became the first participants following certification to the Congress by the Attorney General that the prerequisite automated data arrival and departure system was operational and that a visa waiver information form had been produced. On the basis of several periodic renewals and some modifications, the original three-year program has been in effect ever since. Although Congress originally limited the program to eight countries, it eventually lifted that cap and twenty-nine nations are now included. Greece's anticipated eventual participation would bring the total to 30.
When I appeared before you in June 1997, I spoke of the positive aspects of the program and why I believed it deserved your continued support. I described how the waiver of the visa requirement had stimulated tourism and business travel to the United States, thereby creating thousands of new jobs. I emphasized how the criteria for admission of countries into the program insured the security of our borders by giving all relevant agencies a voice in the nominating process. I spoke of the fact that the waiver program had enabled the Department of State to reallocate scarce resources from low-fraud visa waiver countries to countries with high-volume and a high incidence of fraud, thus helping to insure greater protection for our borders. I informed the Committee that a waiver applicant seeking entry at our border is checked through the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) lookout system, just as a visa applicant is checked through the Department's lookout system, and that a waiver applicant is subject to the same rules for exclusion as any visa applicant. I also informed you that the data-sharing efforts of the Department and the INS allowed access to each other's records for this purpose, and we continue to pursue ways to further enhance our data-sharing efforts. Finally, I advised you that, were the program to end, not only would business and tourism suffer, but the cost of reallocating State Department personnel and resources to visa waiver countries would be very high. Mr. Chairman, it is the opinion of the Department of State that what I described to you in 1997 is just as true today, and more so.
I say "more so" because since I last spoke to you, three new countries, Uruguay, Singapore, and Portugal, have been designated as visa waiver countries, and Greece has been informed that upon fulfillment of specified conditions, it will be designated, also. Experience teaches us that the beneficial impact from these new participants in additional tourism and business and associated savings to the government will be considerable. As I've previously mentioned, the business generated by foreign visitors who enter the U.S. under the VWPP is a major contributing factor to the current account surplus enjoyed by the U.S. in the travel and tourism sector. Not only would these economic benefits be lost if the program were to end, but current estimates are that the cost to the U.S. Government to re-establish operations in waiver countries would exceed $130 million.
Further, since 1997, the Department of State and the Department of Justice have greatly improved the procedures under which countries are nominated and selected for participation in the waiver program. At the request of the Attorney General, who has the authority to designate new participating countries, an interagency protocol was adopted to set standards for nomination, review and selection of countries. Significantly, the Protocol calls for several actions to be taken prior to selection of a country by the Attorney General. These include a requirement for a 90-day advance notification by the Department of State to the Attorney General of intent to nominate, and a review of the proposed nomination by all interested elements of the Department of Justice. Following a formal nomination, an interagency team conducts an on-site visit to the country in question to obtain information on its immigration procedures. A trip report is prepared and used by the interagency group in making its recommendations to the Attorney General.
The new protocol was recently tested with the round of nominations for the four countries I have previously mentioned. In general, we believe it worked well, especially under the pressure of considering four countries almost simultaneously. In any event, the joint committee that wrote and adopted the protocol continues to meet to discuss and adopt refinements to it.
Still, the Department of State recognizes that, as with virtually all other programs of this size and importance, not everything has gone precisely as we would have wished. The machine-readable passport requirement is one such matter. Countries wishing to participate in the program must have or agree to institute a machine-readable passport program. The great majority of participating countries have such a program. We have pressed the few that do not have machine-readable passports to complete their development of such programs as quickly as possible. Our most recent formal request to these few countries was made in October 1999, and this week, we have consulted again on this matter. Recently, one of the four countries has provided a timeline for issuance of machine-readable passports. We will continue to pursue this issue vigorously with the others.
We understand, too, that there may be concern over the possibility that a participating country might suddenly undergo a destabilizing occurrence that could raise questions about its continued participation in the program, regardless of the most current data on visa refusals or overstays. We are certain that reasonable approaches can be found to deal with this type of situation. We would want any solution found in this regard to take into account the logistical and financial difficulties likely to be encountered by the Department of State by a sudden re-imposition of a wide-scale visitor visa requirement. We would need the Congress's help in providing significant additional resources on an urgent basis to re-staff and re-configure our consular sections if a country were suddenly removed from the visa waiver program.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, we would be more than happy to discuss the matters I have raised or any others concerning the visa waiver program at your convenience. However, given the obvious importance and success of the program and the very brief time left before its current extension expires, I would ask that you not delay its renewal. To reiterate what I said at the outset of my remarks, the visa waiver program has been a resounding success for more than a decade and, I believe it is deserving of continuation.
This concludes my statement. Again, thank you for this opportunity to present our views to you. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
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