Catching the Visa Express: The awful program that allows Saudis to skip into the U.S - program allowing residents of Saudi Arabia to get US visas at travel agencies

National Review, July 1, 2002 by Joel Mowbray

Three Saudis who were among the last of the 9/11 homicide hijackers to enter this country didn't visit a U.S. embassy or consulate to get their visas; they went to a travel agent, to whom they submitted only a short, two-page form and a photo. The program that made this possible, Visa Express, is still using travel agents in Saudi Arabia to fulfill this vital role in U.S. border security.

Shortly after 9/11, the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA), the agency within the State Department that oversees visa issuance as well as embassies and consulates in foreign nations, directed its offices around the world to "take a hard look at their current visa operations and see if there are any measures that could be taken to further strengthen the process." An obvious target for this review should have been Visa Express, which allows residents of Saudi Arabia, including non-Saudi citizens, to apply for non-immigrant visas at private travel agencies. After submitting the short form and photo to a travel agent, applicants simply wait to receive a visa in the mail. Most Saudi applicants never come into direct contact with a U.S. citizen until stepping off the airplane onto American soil.

One senior CA official describes the program as "an open-door policy for terrorists." It's striking that three 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. through Visa Express, because the program was established just three months before 9/11. And that's not the only reason Visa Express has raised serious concerns among security experts. Take a sample month: The U.S. consulate in Jeddah interviewed only two of 104 applicants, rejecting none. The month in question? The first 30 days after 9/11. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that enjoys such privileges when it comes to visas. (In some other nations, partial versions of Visa Express are available -- but to very few applicants. Twenty-eight countries -- almost all in Western Europe -- participate in Visa Waiver, which permits travel to America without a visa.)

So Visa Express is on the chopping block, surely? Not even close. The U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia breathlessly promotes the program. The embassy's website proclaims that "applicants will no longer have to take time off from work [and] no longer have to wait in long lines under the hot sun." Use of the program is not simply encouraged; it is expected of applicants.

In December 2001, assistant secretary for consular affairs Mary Ryan boasted in an internal memo that CA "has been fully involved in the campaign against terrorism." Despite her claims, little has been done to try to close this particular "open door" for terrorists. Last October, the embassy assured Saudis that the U.S. had "not changed its procedures or policies in determining visa eligibility as a result of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." And internal actions at CA indicate that nothing has changed since. Senior CA officials concede that reform of Visa Express is not being seriously considered.

The Visa Express program is a symptom of deeply rooted problems in the bureau, which is charged with a unique, and conflicting, pair of goals: to provide public diplomacy on the front lines and to screen out potential terrorists before they reach our shores. In the past decade, CA has done a solid job achieving the former objective, but it has come at the expense of the latter. "Mary Ryan has chosen diplomacy over law enforcement," complains Nikolai Wenzel, a former consular officer in Mexico City.

CA is fully aware of the contradictoriness of its aims. In a cable outlining model practices for consulates, Ryan lists the elements of an interview that follows a visa application. "An interviewing officer must be alert to, and investigate, fraud indicators without unduly offending a potentially bona fide applicant. Achieving all this in a few minutes' interview is not easy." A "few minutes" is typically 2-3 minutes, and that's only for a relative handful of applicants who initially are turned down for a visa.

Ryan refers to the visa window as the "face of the embassy," providing "front line diplomacy." Foreign Service officers (FSOs), who staff consulates, are inundated with messages about politeness and courtesy, and their job-performance reviews focus primarily on those factors, not on their ability to screen out terrorists. This "courtesy culture" has been intentionally nurtured by Ryan in her nine years as the head of CA. She continually stresses the importance of "fundamental fairness" - - for foreigners, even those who don't meet the relatively low standards for receiving a visa.

In loosening the visa-application process, Ryan may have crossed lines established by Congress. Wenzel flatly states: "Mary Ryan's instructions are in direct violation of the law." He points to the intense pressure placed on FSOs to grant visas in the absence of a compelling reason to refuse an application: "The burden of proof is supposed to be on the applicant under the law, but the reality in the field was just the opposite."