GAO: Visa waiver program in ‘confusion’

The Department of Homeland Security’s visa waiver program is in a state of confusion amid federal authorities’ efforts to expand its scope to include new countries, a Government Accountability Office official said in testimony before a Senate subcommittee last week as tourism and business leaders in the CNMI are vying to see the inclusion of Russia and China in the joint Guam-CNMI brand of the program.

The extent to which GAO’s analysis of DHS’s national visa waiver program speaks to the status of the joint Guam-CNMI program is uncertain because officials say the local version is distinct on several points. However, GAO’s findings suggest DHS’ administration of the visa waiver program on the whole is suffering from several key shortfalls.

In the testimony, given before a Senate homeland security subcommittee, Jess Ford, GAO’s Director for International Affairs and Trade, said the efforts of President Bush’s administration to expand the visa waiver program have followed a process that lacks transparency and fails to abide by DHS’s own standard operating procedures.

Consequently, embassy officials and countries vying for inclusion in the program—which allows foreign visitors to the United States from pre-approved nations to enter without a visa—are reporting that the Bush administration’s effort has “created confusion,” Ford said.

“Absent clear direction from DHS, U.S. embassy officials in several aspiring countries told us it had been difficult to explain the expansion process to their foreign counterparts and manage their expectations about when those countries might be admitted,” said Ford, adding that Department of State officials have noted that countries like Taiwan and Israel—which have low visa refusal rates—are wondering why DHS has forgone negotiating with them about admission to the program.

The testimony also notes that DHS has failed to develop plans aimed as assessing and mitigating security risks involved with the visa waiver program, pointing to the agency’s lack of progress on two mandates in the so-called “9/11 Ac”t requiring it to monitor and confirm the departure of foreign visitors from participating nations and to put in place an electronic system to screen visa waiver travelers ahead of their arrival in the United States.

To resolve these issues, GAO recommends that DHS implement a plan to coordinate with the State and Justice departments on expanding the program that includes criteria on which countries will be considered for it and clear timelines for selecting and approving them. Moreover, GAO says DHS should designate an office to monitor overstays under the program and improve the reliability of the data needed to evaluate the illegal immigration risks involved in countries’ participation.

GAO’s testimony comes after local officials with the Marianas Integrated Immigration Task Force-a group of CNMI and Guam officials organized after President Bush in May signed legislation federalizing the region’s immigration rules-presented a report earlier this year to the departments of Homeland Security and Interior in a bid to see the inclusion of Russia and China in the local brand of the visa waiver program.

China and Russia are critical to the future growth of the local tourism market, the task force report notes. The CNMI has already invested $35 million to market itself in China, it says, which has 36 million outbound travelers each year. Last year alone, an estimated 45,000 Chinese tourists visited the Commonwealth.

The impact of losing visa exemptions that have let foreign visitors travel freely to the CNMI and Guam would be staggering, the report shows, costing the islands millions each year. Tourist spending in the CNMI for 2008 is projected to total more than $1 billion with the visa waivers in place, it says. Without them, that figure would drop to about $876 million. Projected losses to the local tourism market without the waivers are even greater in the future. By 2010, the report says, tourism spending with the waivers in place would reach nearly $2 billion, but would sit at roughly $1.3 billion without them.