Post 9-11 visa delays or denials cost America heavily

According to a recent survey conducted by eight reputed American business organisations, corporate America has suffered $30.7 billion in lost revenue and other costs over the past two years as a result of delays or denials in visas for foreign business travelers. In the same way, most of the American universities and other educational institutions failed to enroll at least twenty percent of their accepted students coming from some Asian and African countries because of visa denial, or, in some cases, extreme delay in issuing visas by the respective US consular offices.

The travel and tourism industry in the US suffered a major economic setback during the same period. Most of the US domestic airlines suffered business losses, and, as a result, thousands of executives and workers lost their jobs. The tourism industry also suffered equally here because of cumbersome and complicated visa procedures adopted by the US Consulates abroad, especially after the September 11th terrorist attacks.

A survey conducted recently in some parts of the United States found that nearly three quarters of companies had experienced unexpected delays or arbitrary denials of business visa applications, while sixty percent said the delays had hurt their companies through increased costs or lost sales.

In addition, the findings of the survey pointed out that more than half the 734 companies surveyed said the visa process was worse today than a year ago. "Our companies have expressed our growing frustration to government officials and the Congress for nearly two years over the broken visa system to no avail," said Bill Reinsch, President of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents many large US companies.

The findings mark the first serious effort by US business organizations to quantify the impact of security restrictions put in place since the September 11 terrorist attacks. In the wake of the September 11th attacks, the US began to require time-consuming security checks of a variety of potential travelers, businessmen and students to the US.

As conveyed by a US business executive, the severest impact on business has come from procedures implemented in July 2002 that required background checks of anyone -- including potential foreign business customers -- who was working with technologies deemed sensitive for national security reasons such as aerospace, chemicals, or advanced computers.

The survey showed most delays involved business travelers from China, India, and Russia, none of which are considered potential sources of terrorists. The survey added that the next hardest hit were Malaysia, Indonesia, and South Korea.

Of the companies surveyed, the total financial impact was put at $45 million. The figure of $30.7 billion over nearly two years was reached by estimating the impact across the economy. The survey has pointed out that the medium-sized companies were hit harder than large companies, most likely because many cannot afford to hire immigration lawyers to help expedite visa applications.

After the publication of the findings of the survey, Janice Jacobs, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs said that while serious backlogs occurred in 2002, "we are much, much better than we were. Things are being reviewed regularly." She said average processing times for visas that required security reviews had been cut in half, and about eighty percent were decided within three weeks. "We are almost close to completing a review of visa restrictions," she added.

In the meantime, according to a recent newspaper report, foreign visitors who have overstayed their visas exceed 2.3 million, but only a tiny percentage have reason to fear action by the US Department of Homeland Security.

The report further said that a major portion of the illegal population entered the United States on temporary visas, but only two percent were arrested in fiscal year 2002. "The actual number of over-stayers is unknown because of poor monitoring," the report added.

A total number of 13,900 illegal residents, most of them over-stayers, were targeted for deportation since after the September 11th terrorist attacks, but only about 350, including 12 Bangladeshis, had been sent back as of February this year, the report added.

Responding to the report, Department of Homeland Security spokesman William Strassberger said the government's "obsolete system" for recording the arrival and departure of visitors was being replaced by the computerized US-VISIT program, being developed by the esteemed consultancy Accenture, Ltd.

Zahid Hossain, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute.