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Border Security: Long-term Strategy Needed to Keep Pace with Increasing Demand for Visas

GAO-07-847 Published: Jul 13, 2007. Publicly Released: Aug 02, 2007.
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Highlights

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress and the Department of State (State) initiated changes to the visa process to increase security, but these changes also increased the amount of time needed to adjudicate a visa. Although maintaining security is of paramount importance, State has acknowledged that long waits for visas may discourage legitimate travel to the United States, potentially costing the country billions of dollars in economic benefits over time, and adversely influencing foreign citizens' opinions of our nation. GAO testified in 2006 that a number of consular posts had long visa interview wait times. This report examines (1) State's data on visa interview wait times, (2) actions State has taken to address wait times, and (3) State's strategy for dealing with projected growth in visa demand.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of State To improve the Bureau of Consular Affair's oversight and management of visa-adjudicating posts, the Secretary of State should develop a strategy to address worldwide increases in visa demand that balances the security responsibility of protecting the United States from potential terrorists and individuals who would harm U.S. interests with the need to facilitate legitimate travel to the United States. In doing so, State should take into consideration relevant factors, such as the flow of visa applicants, the backlog of applicants, the availability of consular officers, and the time required to process each visa application. State's analysis should be informed by reliable data on the factors that influence wait times. State should update any plan annually to reflect new information on visa demand.
Closed – Not Implemented
In response to the recommendation, State claimed that the Department uses several tools to monitor seasonal demand, wait times, and backlogs using the Consular Consolidated Database, the Consular Workload Statistics System, and the Consular Package. In addition, the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) reviews and monitors trends to adjust the numbers of necessary staff to manage available resources. The Bureau also worked with other Department bureaus on a project to examine the future of consular work five and ten years out. However, State did not develop a strategy to address worldwide increases in visa demand. While the steps taken by the Department may improve the ability to manage their workload and resources on an as-needed basis, it will not address the long-term challenges associated with increasing and changing visa demand.
Department of State To improve the Bureau of Consular Affair's oversight and management of visa-adjudicating posts, the Secretary of State should improve the reliability and utility of visa waits data by defining collection standards and ensuring that posts report the data according to the standards.
Closed – Implemented
In response to the recommendation, State has taken several steps to improve the collection of data for visa wait times. According to State, the Bureau of Consular Affairs is in the process of awarding a performance-based contract for overseas support services to visa operations, known as the Global Support Strategy (GSS) contract. GSS will bring greater uniformity to appointment services and improve oversight by Washington. Through GSS, management information will be submitted daily and will permit Washington, D.C.-based staff to monitor which posts have appointments available, and which might serve to assist others during seasonal surges. Our intent is to monitor those statistics to ensure that posts are making appointments available as needed and accurately reporting the number of applicants in the queue/backlog. In addition, State has taken steps to publish this information online for its applicants.
Department of State To improve the Bureau of Consular Affair's oversight and management of visa-adjudicating posts, the Secretary of State should identify practices and procedures used by posts to manage workload and reduce wait times and encourage the dissemination and use of successful practices.
Closed – Implemented
In response to the recommendation, State indicated the Bureau of Consular Affairs is improving its ability to disseminate and foster the use of successful practices. The Bureau's intranet site has a permanent, dedicated "Management" section that highlights innovative management practices, and management encouraged staff to use the site to share best practices. Regional Consular Leadership Development seminars are held annually in each region of the world. Consular Management Assistance Teams visit consular section and work intensively with the consular officer, and have increased focus on improving the management of a section to help reduce wait times. Thirteen Consular Management Assistance Team visits were made to consular section in FY 2009. Consular Issues cables, which are transmitted to all overseas consular personnel, regularly highlight successful practices, as does the Visa Office's E-zine.

Full Report

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Topics

Border securityConsulatesEmbassiesPolicy evaluationStaff utilizationStrategic planningTravelVisasHuman resources managementEmbassy security