Posted on 12/29/2009 1:05:16 PM PST by goldstategop
The mishandling of the would-be airplane bomber Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s visa is only the latest piece of evidence that the granting of visas should be taken away from the State Department. Doing so would improve our national security — and actually help the State Department itself.
The granting of visas has little to do with State’s main function, which is to manage relations with foreign governments. The department’s “mission statement” reads as follows:
Advance freedom for the benefit of the American people and the international community by helping to build and sustain a more democratic, secure, and prosperous world composed of well-governed states that respond to the needs of their people, reduce widespread poverty, and act responsibly within the international system.
Needless to say, there’s not a word there about “keeping terrorists out of our country,” and that is no surprise. Granting visas is a function that most people at State relegate to the margins of their activities. State’s mandarins — foreign service officers or “FSOs” — look down at the consular officials who handle visas. This is considered a third-rate assignment, something young FSOs have to suffer through for a few years at the very start of their careers. It is less a training assignment than a form of hazing. They then escape into “real” State Department work — diplomatic activity, conducted in the regional bureaus of the Department and in our embassies abroad. Relieving State of the need to manage the visa process would remove from it a task for which it has no enthusiasm — and for which its top officials have no expertise.
For the granting of visas — especially today, when terrorism is such a complex threat — is far closer to being a law-enforcement function. The obvious place for this task is the Department of Homeland Security, which houses Customs and Immigration enforcement already and which sees protecting the country from terrorism as its central focus. A consular corps could be created at DHS, and would likely attract people who want to see the world — and help protect America from terror. It’s logical that former military and police officials would apply, perhaps retired after 20 years of service but with plenty of energy and experience. And whoever applied would know his or her job was not to smooth relations with foreign governments, not to avoid unpleasant refusals of visa requests, not to attend cocktail parties; instead it would be to help manage a huge system that affects America’s commercial and economic interests, and nowadays our national security as well. Moreover, within DHS, such officials wouldn’t be second-rate citizens; their functions would be understood as part of the core mission of the department. Compare the DHS mission statement to that from State above:
This Department of Homeland Security’s overriding and urgent mission is to lead the unified national effort to secure the country and preserve our freedoms. . . . [T]he Department was created to secure our country against those who seek to disrupt the American way of life. . . .
Such a move would also downsize the State Department usefully: Literally thousands of consular officials at hundreds of posts around the world could be removed from the department, and 21 domestic offices that issue passports to Americans could also be moved over to DHS. As it happens, visa processing is often not even done physically at U.S. embassies abroad, but at other locations able to handle the huge lines that appear in many capitals. Keeping visa functions, and those long lines, away from our embassies can actually help the physical security of our embassies as well.
There are very few good arguments as to why this change from State to DHS should not be made right now. It’s sometimes argued that those early years on the visa line help young FSOs to get their feet on the ground and see reality, before the years on the diplomatic circuit remove them to the stratosphere. It’s a poor reason to keep a law-enforcement function at State, and there are plenty of other ways to expose young diplomats to life on the ground. Of course, all those positions processing U.S. visa requests won't be eliminated entirely, but by consolidation with the border, customs, and immigration functions already at DHS, one can at least hope for some greater efficiency and economies over time. And one can hope for greater security faster than that.
Moving visa functions to DHS is no panacea, obviously, but the case of the would-be airline bomber Abdul Mutallab is perhaps suggestive. His multiple-entry visa to the U.S. was not cancelled by State, not even after his own father alerted U.S. Embassy officials in Nigeria of the danger he might present. His visa to enter the United Kingdom was cancelled, however, months ago. But not by the Foreign Office, Britain’s equivalent of the State Department. In the U.K., the Foreign Office does not handle visas; they are the responsibility of the U.K. Border Agency, established in 2008 and “responsible for securing the United Kingdom’s borders and controlling migration,” just like our DHS. Let’s learn the lesson. Members of Congress seeking to react to the Detroit near-calamity in a useful way should hold hearings right after New Year’s and get a move on. No more visas for State.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
And who will oversee DHS with all the new responsibilities? Congress?
Hopeless.
Who’s overseeing the DoS now? There are more visa programs run by the State Department than Obama made campaign promises. Why do we need a Diversity Visa lottery program? Why do we need a traveling without a visa waiver program? Sounds like avenues for terrorists to make inroads? In the article Abrams didn’t say that the program should happen immediately, but possibly over time. His overall ideas have merit, if not to relook the way things are currently done and plug some leaks. Since the DoS has proven incompetence in this case, it should make you wonder how many other terrorists are here or coming on invalid visas, issued by some clerk that’s just a rubber stamp operator.
Snips: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that a “substantial” percentage of America’s illegal population is made up of visa overstays — their estimates range from 27 to 57 percent.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted in a 2004 report2 on visa overstays that DHS may be significantly underestimating the magnitude of the visa overstay problem....
In 2007, 74 percent of the more than five million foreign nationals who applied for visitor’s visas were approved.
These POS are going to be in charge of your life and death.
Should be a private security firm.
We would get our moneies worth then.
With the Clueless, Joke, AssClown, Napolitano in charge?
Why not just do away with visas for anyone applying from a Moozie-Controlled/Influenced country?
After all they all belong to the CULT of ISLAM aka, the Religion of Peace, thus nuttin to worry about!!!
Lol, you are right! I would trust the Israeli’s far more than the candy-stripers at State to weed out the jihadi murderers. One problem is that State gives jobs to foreign nationals in their embassies to process these VISA’s-letting the fox guard the chicken coop.
I agree, currently the last line of defense is a (CBP) Customs and Border Inspector at a port of entry. They are under constant pressure to keep the lines moving and generally only have a few moments to clear a passenger. If the passenger as a valid US visa issued by the US consulate chances are the inspector will assume they guy is okay and clear him.
They do deny passengers entry with valid visas from time to time when time allows for more in-depth interviews but many slip through.
This current system is designed to fail. The time to ascertain the admissibility of an alien is prior to the issuance of a visa, not in a line at LAX. I believe that these provisions were in the original DHS legislation but somehow it never mad it into the final bill.
Visa could probably do a better job of managing and issuing Visa’s for the US. They have a better system and better data base than State of DHS does. We should outsource it and make them keep track of entrance and exit to the country.
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