Speech #1050119654

Mr. Chairman. I rise today in support of H.R. 2578. a bill to extend the visa waiver pilot program and to require the collection of data regarding the visa overstay rates of nonimmigrants who visit the United States. The vis waIver pilot. program was firsti. authorized In 116. rhe principles aid goals of the program are sound: to save government resources while promoting tourism to the United States. The program was based on the prosumption that when visa abuse Is very low from a given nountry. It is better oli shift. resonces away front U.S. consular posts In that country and toward consular posts where the risk of visa fra.ud Is more II koly. i do not believe that iuy of ub arc Interested Ira seeing tire visa waiver pilot program expire. The impact on the State Department. which would have to redeploy key resources. would be enormous. The potential negative ImPact on ti.H. travel and trurlsm would tie I aneasurabln. I understand that the chairman will offer an amendment to extend the program until the year 2000 to make it a true 2year extension of this pilot program. I will support that amendment. but only because tie till]. as currently draftfed. Includes lrovisions whih will require ttre AtLorney General to implement a prograrn 1.o eiasure visa overstay rated for till visitors to tie United States. Currently. a country Is eligible to participate in the visa waiver program if It has a visa refusal rate lower than 2.5 percent for the preceding 2 years and if other crituria are nlet.. The other criteria include having machinereadable passports. reciprocity for American tourists. and a low risk of cilomaronlalsng the law enforcement Inerest. of tire United States. In nonState Department Jargon. the words visa refusal rates refer to the percentage of tourist visa applicatlios that are denel Ia a given country. Visa ipplications are refused when U.S. consular officers. often using subjective factors. race or classbased profiles. decide wlaether someone is likely to overstay a visa or not. A reildent at tie U.S. consulate In San Palo. Brazil hlighllighlt the irrationallty of reliance on visa refusal rates for participation in the visa waiver program rather than objectively measured overstay rates. which this hill will aIow Ur to gather Information Iti ilemerint. In tire Instance In Brazil. the Brazilian consular officers were using criteria. a coe on the aplicllation that. Illustrates the point that I ai making. Tire code oil tie application was a code which says LP. which stood for "looks poor." Tiese same consular officers were Instructed to carefully review any visa application fromO persons living In regiors of Brazil which were predonilnantly black or Asian. The net effect of this careful review was that few Brazilians of African or Asian ancestry ever got visas to visit the UniAd 8 bil.es. We only found out about this bcaume one of i.he consular officers refused to follow Iis proeess. When he did. the State Departament fired hin.