Senators Feinstein, Kennedy, Kyl and Brownback Introduce Comprehensive Bill to Reform and Strengthen Visa System
November 30, 2001

Washington, DC - Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) today introduced comprehensive legislation to help prevent terrorists from entering the United States through loopholes in our immigration and visa system.

The following is a statement by Senator Feinstein followed by a summary of the bill:

"I am pleased to announce that Senators Kennedy, Kyl and Brownback have agreed to join me in introducing comprehensive legislation to reform and strengthen our nation’s visa system. This bill, in essence, incorporates key provisions of separate legislation that I introduced last month with Senator Kyl and Senator Kennedy introduced with Senator Brownback.

What we have discovered in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks was that the perpetrators were able to use our visa system to enter the United States with impunity and carry out their deadly mission. The terrorists did not have to steal into the country as stowaways on sea vessels, or border-jumpers evading federal authorities. Most, if not all, appeared to have come in with temporary visas, which are routinely granted to tourists, students, and other temporary visitors to the United States. Once here, the 19 hijackers didn’t have to worry about being detected, even after some of their visas expired and they became illegal overstayers.

We have since learned that two possible hijacking ringleaders— Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, presumed pilots of the jets that hit the World Trade Center—overstayed their initial visas. Under the most ideal circumstances, this type of infraction would have resulted in two things: (1) the expired visas and travel documents would have been voided; and (2) the men would have been barred from reentering the country for at least 3 years.

Yet, despite having no valid visas, both men left the country and were allowed to return on flights through Miami and New York last January. After they re-entered the country, they were able to remain below the immigration enforcement radar screen, blending into local communities without detection.

As many as 4 million tourists, students and others legally entered the U.S. with visas, but later became illegal immigrants by remaining in the country long after their visas expire. The INS has acknowledged that the agency has no idea where they are.

Other serious problems have also come to light:

Foreign Students

Each year, more than 500,000 foreign nationals enter the U.S. with foreign student visas. Within the last ten years, 16, 000 came from such terrorist supporting states as Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and Syria. The program is severely under-regulated. During the 2000-2001 academic year, 3,761 foreign nationals from terrorist supporting countries were admitted into the U.S. on student visas. Currently, the State Department does not perform extensive background checks for students coming from Syria or Sudan. An intermediate background check is required for Iranian students and more extensive checks are required for students from Iraq and Libya.

Last year, the National Commission on Terrorism warned, "Of the large number of foreign students who come to this country to study, there is a risk that a small minority may exploit their student status to support terrorist activity."

The problem is that the INS has no idea whether the students are registered at the schools that sponsored them or how many are in the United States today with expired visas. Nor can the INS provide information on the number or the type of institutions who are eligible to accept foreign students into their academic programs. This type of information is essential to INS and the Congress’ ability to exercise effective oversight over the visa program.

In the early 1990s for example, five officials at four California colleges, were convicted of taking bribes, providing counterfeit education documents and fraudulently applying for more than 100 foreign student visas. When asked what steps the INS took to ensure that the college would comply with the terms of the program in the future, INS staff said no steps were taken. When asked the about the fate of the 100 foreign nationals who fraudulently obtained foreign student visas, the INS had no idea.

I believe that the vast majority of students come to this country legitimately and with good intentions but clearly we need to regulate this system to ensure that this program is not abused.

Visa Waiver

The Visa Waiver Program was designed to enable citizens from 29 participating countries to travel to the U.S. without having to first obtain visas for entry. An estimated 23,000,000 visitors enter the U.S. under this program. This program has been subject to abuse and has, at times, facilitated illegal entry because it eliminates the need for visitors to obtain U.S. visas and allows them to avoid the pre-screening that consular officers normally perform on visa applicants.

As a result, checks by INS inspectors at U.S. ports of entry become the chief and sometimes only means of preventing illegal entry; INS inspectors have, on average, less than one minute to check and decide on each visitor.

The INS has also estimated that over 100,000 blank passports have been stolen from government offices in participating countries in recent years. Abuse of the Visa waiver program poses threats to U.S. national security and increases illegal immigration. For example, one of the co-conspirators in the World Trade Center bombing of 1993 deliberately chose to use a fraudulent Swedish passport to attempt entry into the U.S. because of Sweden’s participation in the visa waiver program.

Information Sharing Among Federal Agencies

In a Judiciary Subcommittee hearing I held in September, Mary Ryan, the Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, said that the lack of information sharing is a ‘colossal intelligence failure" and that the State Department "had no information on the terrorists from law enforcement.’

Personally, I am amazed that a person can apply for a visa and there is no mechanism by which the FBI or CIA can enter a code into the system to raise a red flag on individuals known to have links to terrorist groups and pose a national threat. In the wake of September 11th, it is hard for me to fathom how a terrorist might be permitted to enter the U.S. because our government agencies aren’t sharing information.

I am also concerned about the current structure of information technology. An assessment made of the INS management and investment of information technology by the Department of Justice Inspector revealed the INS cannot ensure that the money it spends each year on information technology will be able to support the service and enforcement functions of the agency. Nor is the agency’s information adequately protected from unauthorized access or service disruption. Moreover, the INS currently uses too many different data bases, many of which do not communicate with each other.

All these problems point to the dramatic need for change. And once again, I would like to thank Senators Kennedy, Brownback and Kyl for their work to make this comprehensive legislation a reality. This bill protects our nation’s openness to newcomers while at the same time adds some prudent steps to our immigration policy to ensure that Americans are safe at home."

The following is a summary of the Kennedy-Feinstein-Kyl-Brownback legislation:

• Interoperable data system. The Administration would be required to develop and implement an interoperable law enforcement and intelligence data system by October 26, 2003 to provide the INS and State Department immediate access to relevant law enforcement and intelligence information. The database would be accessible to foreign service officers issuing visas, federal agents determining the admissibility of aliens to the U.S. and law enforcement officers investigating and identifying aliens. The bill also prevents and protects against the misuse of such data.
  
  
• Reform of the visa waiver program. The bill would require that each country participating in the visa waiver program issue tamper-resistant, machine-readable biometric passports to its nationals by 2003.
  
  
• Reporting stolen or lost passports. The INS would be required to enter stolen or lost passport numbers into the interoperable data system within 72 hours of notification of loss or theft. And until that system is established, the INS must enter that information into an existing data system.
  
  
• New requirements for passenger manifests. All commercial flights and vessels coming to the U.S. from international ports must provide manifest information about each passenger, crew member, and other occupant prior to arrival. This section of the bill also eliminates the 45-minute deadline to clear arriving passengers.
  
  
• New travel document requirements. Requires all visas, passports, and other travel documents to be fraud and tamper-resistant and contain biometric data by October 26, 2003.
  
  
• Provision on Nonimmigrants from Certain Countries. Prohibits the issuance of nonimmigrant visas to nationals from countries designated as state sponsors of international terrorism, unless the Secretary of State, after consulting with the Attorney General and the heads of other appropriate agencies, determines that the individuals pose no safety or security threat to the United States.
  
  
• Student visa reforms. Reforms the student visa process by:

• Requiring the Attorney General to notify schools of the student’s entry and requiring the schools to notify the INS if a student has not reported to school within 30 days at the beginning of an academic term. (The monitoring program does not, at present, collect such critical information as the student’s date of entry, port of entry, date of school enrollment, date the student leaves school (e.g., graduates, quits), and the degree program or field of study. That and other significant information will now be collected.)
  
  
• Requiring the INS, in consultation with the State Department, to monitor the various steps involved in admitting foreign students and to notify the school of the student’s entry. It also requires the school to notify INS if a student has not reported for school no more than 30 days after the deadline for registering for classes.
  
  
• Mandating the INS to conduct a periodic review of educational institutions to monitor their compliance with record-keeping and reporting requirements. (If an institution or program fails to comply, their authorization to accept foreign students may be revoked. While the INS currently reviews educational institutions, reviews have not been done consistently in recent years and some schools are not diligent in their record-keeping and reporting responsibilities.)
  
  
  
• More border personnel. This section authorizes an increase of at least 1,000 INS inspectors, 1,000 INS investigative personnel, 1,000 Customs Service inspectors, and additional associated support staff in each of the fiscal years 2002 through 2006 to be employed at either the northern or southern border.
  
  
• Better INS pay and staffing. To help INS retain border patrol officers and inspectors, this section would raise their pay grade and permit the hiring of additional support staff.
  
  
• Border patrol and customs training. To enhance our ability to identify and intercept would-be terrorists at the border, funds are provided for the regular training of border patrol, customs agents, and INS inspectors. In addition, funds are provided to agencies staffing U.S. ports of entry for continuing cross-training, to fully train inspectors in using lookout databases and monitoring passenger traffic patterns, and to expand the Carrier Consultant Program.
  
  
• Better DOS information and training. This section authorizes funding to improve the security features of the Department of State’s (DOS) screening of visa applicants. Improved security features include: better coordination of international intelligence information; additional staff; and continuous training of consular officers.

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