Dm B8 Team 8 Fdr- State Dep- Document Request Responses 507

S/S 2 0 0 4 0 8 8 9 7 United State Washington, D.C. 20520 April 23,

2004

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SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED MEMORANDUM FOR DANIEL MARCUS GENERAL COUNSEL NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES SUBJECT: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Request for Documents Request No. 15 This is in response to Request No. 15 from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States for Department of State documents. The attached consists of two pages of unclassified information providing the requested data on individual officer issuance and refusal rates in Riyadh and Jeddah from January 1, 1997, through September 11, 2001, as well as posts' overall issuance and refusal rates broken down by third country nationals and Saudi citizens. The Department of State does not provide visa refusal statistics to the public. Such statistics are open to misintepretation. Refusal statistics relate to the activities of individuals. We want to avoid any misunderstandings that would result if individual governments were to look at a nation's overall refusal rate and seek to compare these rates with that of another country. Such conclusions would be of no value as explained below. Consequently, we ask that you not include this information in public statements or reports. Please.also note that the attached document contains information that is protected from disclosure under Section 222(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1202(f), and, in accordance with that law, may only be used for the "formulation, amendment, administration, or enforcement of the immigration, nationality, or other laws of the United States." SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

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It is important to note that statistics tell only part of a story. It is not unusual in a visa unit for various officers to have disparate refusal rates and yet still maintain common adjudication standards. An individual officer's refusal rate may vary depending on the role he or she carries out in the section as well as the demographic mix of visa applicants at a particular post. In some cases an officer may spend a preponderance of his or her time on certain types of visas or categories of visa applicants, using adjudication standards common to all officers at post, which nonetheless may result in either a higher or lower refusal rate than might otherwise be the case. For example, there may be differences between the numbers or types of cases adjudicated by a supervisor versus a line officer, or an officer fluent in one language versus another. While the statistics transmitted in the attachment provide a snapshot of refusal rates, they must be viewed with an understanding of the difficulty of drawing conclusions based solely on the numbers. The Department of State is providing the names of the officers and a breakdown of their refusal rates for review by the Commission but not for public release. Some additional explanatory comments concerning the attached document are necessary: Visa Statistics: All refusals, regardless of grounds, have been included. In cases where an adjudicating Foreign Service Officer was not recorded, the certifying officer or authorized user was recorded. A small number of cases remained that had no User ID at all recorded with the adjudication data. They are still included in the attached document, with a blank user ID. These anomalies stem from an earlier, less sophisticated version of our visa systems, which was corrected in the more modernized NIV system introduced in Jeddah and Riyadh in mid-1998. Some data converted from the earlier system may have not have converted into the new system completely. Adjudicating Officers: In some cases, the database does not link a name to a user ID, and the information is no longer available. This is because the earlier visa system (PCN-NIV) was in use in Riyadh and Jeddah prior to mid-1998. At that time, Jeddah and Riyadh were converted to the modernized visa application, which permitted the Department to capture more information on visa adjudications and make it available on-line through the Consolidated Consular Database. SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

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We hope this information is useful to you. As always, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have further questions.

Karl Hofmann Executive Secretary

Attachments: 1. Index and Department of State documents. 2. Incoming request.

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

200409134 United Stated Department of State Washington, D.C. 20520 www.state.gov April 23, 2004

UNCLASSIFIED When Separated From Attachments

MEMORANDUM FOR DANIEL MARCUS GENERAL COUNSEL NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES SUBJECT: Unredacted Telegrams Attached are two cables which Mr. Scott Allan requested in unredacted form.

Karl Hofmann Executive Secretary

Attachments: 1.01 State 111711 dated June 27, 2001 (NODIS). 2. 01 Islamabad 3628 dated June 29, 2001 (NODIS).

UNCLASSIFIED When Separated From Attachments

200408469 United Stateg^Departmerit of State Washington, D.C. 20520 April 16, 2 0 0 4

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED MEMORANDUM FOR DANIEL MARCUS GENERAL COUNSEL NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES SUBJECT: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Request for Documents (Request No. 7, 1 .b.) This is in response to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Request for Documents No. 7, l.b., and Tom Eldridge's email requests for Department of State documents. Per Mr. Eldridge's request, State has also attached the 2001 "Report from the Visa Office." Attached is the second installment of documents in response to request No. 7. This installment consist of 6 documents. Please note that some of the material is marked "Sensitive but Unclassified." Although this material is not classified in and of itself, its designation as "Sensitive but Unclassified" requires special handling. In addition, the attached information is protected from disclosure under Section 222(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1202(f), and, in accordance with that law, may only be used for the "formulation, amendment, administration, or enforcement of the immigration, nationality, or other laws of the United States." Therefore we request that the Commission protect these documents from unauthorized disclosure. We hope this information is useful to you. As always, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have further questions. Karl Hofmann Executive Secretary Attachments: 1. Department of State documents 2. Incoming request

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