Speech #870015730

Mr. Speaker. I have today introduced legislation to amend certain provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act relating to the procedures of nonimmigrant entry into the United States. Legislation to remove redtape and delays and to relax burdensome regulations. in my judgment. is the indispensable concomitant to the bill proposing a new Office of International Travel. While in fairness the Department of State and the Immigration and Naturalization Service must be commended for significant measures already taken to ease entry requirements. there is still much to be done. both in the area of administrative regulations under existing law and through amendments to the law itself. While the executive agencies have not done all that they can to facilitate nonimmigrant entry procedures. much unfair criticism has been leveled against them that should in fact be directed at overly rigorous provisions of the law that they are bound to execute. There are grave inequities in our imposition of severe entry requirements on the nationals of countries which have paved a golden path for American visitors by eliminating visas. reducing customs checks to a bare formality. and devising elaborate tourist facilities. Many applicants for American visitors visas. for example. are required to answer searching personal and political questions contained in a preliminary visa application formform FS257 AFwhich may be required at the discretion of our consular officers. In the words of Paul J. C. Friedlander. the New York Times travel writer. in an article published on None of these questions help an American to explain to a European why the latter needs a visa to visit the United States when Western European countries require no visas of Americans. The visa process essentially involves the decision by an American consular officer to grant or deny a visa to an alien applicant. A consular refusal. as a rule. closes the door to the United States. The consular officer must make two basic determinations: first. whether the applicant must be classified as an immigrant or a nonimmigrant. second. whether the applicant meets the qualitative requirements of the law. Although these qualitative requirements are the same under the Immigration and Nationality Act for nonimmigrants as for immigrants. they are in practice less rigorously applied for temporary visitors. The consular officer is enjoined by the act from issuing a visa if he knows or has reason to believe that the alien is ineligible. The consular officer has broad discretionary powers. In describing the responsibilities of the Secretary of State for the administration of the immigration laws. the act--section 104(a)-specifically excepts the powers and duties conferred upon consular officers relating to the granting or refusal of visas. This provision. in my judgment. confers unduly arbitrary powers upon our consular officials and should be amended to grant the Secretary of State full power to reverse the denial of a visa by a consular officer. The bill which I have today introduced contains a provision to that effect. One of the principal reasons for the frequently excessive zeal with which consular and immigration officers interrogate foreigners who wish to visit the United States is the fact that the Immigration and Nationality Act places on the applicant the entire burden of proof as to his genuinely nonimmigrant status. I refer to the provision. contained in section 214(b). that every alien "shall be presumed to be an immigrant" until he establishes to the satisfaction of consular and visa officers that he Is entitled to nonimmigrant status. With a view to relieving the prospective visitor of this unwarranted presumption as to his status and motives. and for purposes of relieving our consular and immigration officers of what amounts to a statutory mandate for overly zealous and often offensive examination of potential visitors. my bill calls for outright repeal of the presumption of immigrant status in the Immigration and Nationality Act. This illiberal provision is wholly incompatible with any program of encouraging foreigners to visit the the United States and with the fundamental proposition that international travel is as beneficial to the host as it is to the visitor. There has been substantial progress over the past 5 years in the liberalization of nonimmigrant visa procedures. A Presidential directive issued on May 26. 1954. instructed the Departments of State. Commerce. Justice. and Treasury to take appropriate measures to simplify all international travel procedures. The State Department issued a regulatory amendment on June 30. 1955. which authorized the issuance of nonimmigrant visas to most persons who were also registered on immigration lists. Simultaneously. the period of maximum validity of nonimmigrant visas was extended from 24 to 4.8 months for residents of countries which offer reciprocal privileges or require no visas of Americans. This measure was in accord with sections 221(c) and 281 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. which require that. insofar as practicable. the validity of nonimmigrant visas and fees therefor should be governed by reciprocity. After the issuance of the regulations of 1955. the State Department made representations to foreign governments for the liberalization of treatment of American visitors. with the result that 65 countries now issue 4year nonimmigrant visas without fee to American citizens or require no visas at all and the United States in turn issues 4year nofee visas to nationals of all these countries. Fees for nationals of other countries are governed by reciprocity. Under the statute visa requirements may be waived altogether on a reciprocal basis only for nationals of foreign contiguous territory and adjacent islands. that is for Canada. Mexico. and the Caribbean area. The United States. therefore. cannot reciprocate visa waivers for most countries. This. I submit. is highly offensive to many of our closest friends and allies abroad and a major obstacle to foreign tourist travel in the United States. Accordingly. the bill which I have today introduced calls for granting authority to the Secretary of State to waive nonimmigrant visas. in his discretion. for the nationals of any country which grants reciprocal waiver to Americans. This is the key provision of my bill. the true test of the sincerity of our invitation to foreigners to visit the United States. The Travel Office bill. if enacted. will lay out the welcome mat before our door. The authorization of liberal visa waivers on a reciprocal basis will open that door. The waiver of visas cannot of course be made mandatory but must be left to the discretion of the Secretary of State. It would be extremely unfortunate. however. if the State Department were to interpret such discretionary authority as a mandate for maintaining the status quo if it so wishes. The Secretary of State and the Attorney General acting jointly have full authority under existing legislation to waive nonimmigrant visas for Canada. Mexico. and the countries of the Caribbean area. To date. visa waiver has been granted only to Canadians. I strongly believe that such waiver should be extended at once to Mexico and at least some of the countries of the Caribbean. The Congress. in granting broad new authority for waiver of visas on a reciprocal basis. should make very clear to the Department of State its expectation that the Department will exercise this authority liberally. with due regard for the legislative objectives of encouraging a greatly increased flow of foreign visitors to the United States. The statutory requirement of fingerprinting visa applicants was modified by Congress in 1957. This wise legislative enactment eliminated an irritating. insulting. and unnecessary requirement and the State Department now does not fingerprint nonimmigrant visa applicants of any nationality. Visa application forms have been standardized. The official nonimmigrant visa application has been revised and simplified and now consists of a singlecopy 3 by 5 cardform FS257requiring about 10 items of information. most of them required by statute. The preliminary questionnaireform FS257 AFcontains searching personal and political questions which are sometimes found highly offensive by visa applicants. This preliminary form is required relatively infrequently and is designed for cases where there is some question. in the judgment of the consular officer. as to the eligibility or bona fide nonimmigrant status of the applicant. The requirement of this preliminary form is entirely at the discretion of consular officers. who too often give undue offense by poor judgment in requiring this form of respectable and reputable foreign citizens.