T5 B71 Misc Files Re Dos Visa Policy 3 Of 3 Fdr- Jul 02 Gao-dos Emails Re Tipoff Hits- W Congressional Presentation Doc 595

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Jody Woods - RE: data request

"Fischel, Stephen an K"l "'Jody Woods' 07/17/20022:04! 4PM~~ RE: data request

From: To: Date: Subject:

i will see what i can find out. remember some hits are created to find out when someone travels or are often based on extremely little information, in regard to these, it may be very tough to find this out. i will get back to yuo on this. \- Original Message ---- . From: Jody Woods [mailto[ Sent: Wednesday. July 17. 2002 11:51 AM ""^ Subject: RE: data request Thanks. I also have another question. As I was reading through State's 2003 Congressional Presentation Document, I noticed that 79 of 178 tru^ TIPOFF hits in FYO1 were not denied under 212(a)3(b) due to insufficient information. (See p.373) What ultimately happened to these cases? How many were issued? How many were denied and on what grounds? \, Stephen K" {_

07/16/2002 6:01:30PI\y not. we have been a bit overrun, but i have not fo

you.

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Original Message— From: Jody Woods [mailtq Sent: Tuesday. July 16. 2002 6:16 PM

To:l

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Personal Privacy

Subject: RE: data request Hi Steve, We haven't heard back from you in a while. Any luck finding the information we requested? - Jody Jody Woods U.S. General Accounting Office 441 G. St., NW Washington, DC 20548

"Fischel, Stephen K" <J_

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_} 06/21/2002 4:02:41 PM

jody, i have requested the info, but it is not as readily available as ihad hoped, i hope to have something for you by monday. appreciate your

United States Department of State

CONGRESSIONAL PRESENTATION DOCUMENT

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Fiscal Year 2003 t..

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DIPLOMATIC & CONSULAR PROGRAMS Consular Affairs OVERVIEW STA TEMENT The mission of the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) is to assist Americans abroad, facilitate international travel, and protect our borders pursuant to statutory mandates: •

To administer laws, formulate regulations and implement policies relating to the broad range of consular services provided to American citizens abroad;

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To issue passports to U.S. citizens; and

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To formulate and implement policies relating to immigration and to administer the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act as they relate to the Department of State in coordination with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

NATIONAL INTERESTS & GOALS Priority: Support U. S. citizens abroad and those concerned about them in the U. 5.

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Performance Goals: A. Prepare for and respond to crises abroad, aviation disasters, and other situations in which US citizens need consular services. B. Maintain information services to US citizens. C. Assist in the resolution of international parental child abduction cases. D. Develop and enhance databases to track all citizen services case activities. E. Implement Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. F.Work with U.S. federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities and foreign authorities to achieve compliance with consular notification and access provisions of Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and bilateral treaties. Indicators: A. Availability of automated case-tracking systems. Consular information systems are accurate and available to users. B. Implementation of international conventions. Level of outreach to public and stakeholders. Progress (as of January 2002): We deployed a Crisis Management module for use by task forces to improve service to Americans during crises. Following 9/11, we provided assistance to New York City officials dealing with the deaths of foreigners in the World Trade Center and staffed task forces to deal with Americans stranded overseas by the closure of US air space, setting up additional Task Force sites in the bureau. Running up to three training sessions per day, CA trained 250 employees on the use of the new case tracking system. We kept Americans apprised of information that may affect their safety and security overseas by ensuring that posts' systems for contacting Americans abroad in a crisis were up-to-date and that accurate information was available, consistent with USG domestic information and conveyed to Americans overseas in a factual but non-alarmist manner. We issued 65 Travel Warnings, 120 Public Announcements, and 189 Consular Information Sheets. CA's web site received 117.9 million hits, 30.7 million more than in FYOO. 90% of users found the information helpful. We held 69 briefings for stakeholder groups, including international student program participants, travel agents, and parents whose children were taken abroad by the other parent.

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DIPLOMATIC & CONSULAR PROGRAMS our goal of training 40% of our staff during 2001. We continued to use technology to enhance both the security and efficiency of passport operations. The last six domestic passport-issuing offices received the new photodigLtization passport issuance system thatincorporates the use of printed digital photos and related security devices resulting in greatly improved passport security. We began to research ways to efficiently bring this new technology to overseas issuances. We completed implementation of PFMWeb, Jvrfrich provides employees nationwide with desktop electronic access to full-color digital images of - passport records stored in Washington. We implemented the Passport Lookout Tracking System, which is »< designed to virtually replicate roughly 100,000 fraud files in real-time to any authorized user. We • completed software to deploy the Consular Lost and Stolen Passport (CLASP) database system allowing J posts abroad to enter losses and thefts of US passports. Since September 11, we have intensified efforts to jj improve electronic data sharing with other border security agencies (Customs, INS and APHIS). We ./enhanced our web site with a Passport Acceptance Facility Database searchable by zip code to help / customers locate the nearest place to apply for a passport. In 2001,352 post offices, libraries, and other state aid local government offices signed up to accept passport applications, with a growing number also ••, offering the option of on-site passport photos. We revised the Passport Agent's Reference Guide to keep the more than 5,300 passport-application acceptance facilities advised of changes in policy and procedure. We ^assisted over a dozen foreign countries in their efforts to improve their national passports and/or their ,• internal controls over passport issuance. This has a direct and beneficial effect on the US visa process as «s* well as US border security since improved passports are harder to alter and counterfeit. : J Priority: Facilitate the travel and immigration to the U. S. of legitimate VISA applicants and the denial ill of VISAS to ineligible applicants. '" .Performance Goals: A Meet demand for nonimmigrant and immigrant visas, accommodating workload increases resulting from new legislative mandates. B. Improve management of core consular functions, ''^'maximize technology, improve business practices, and ensure training of consular personnel. C. Share data ^J, with law enforcement and intelligence agencies and reduce the risk of illegitimate entry of aliens inimical to • ~ US interests by using all-source informationjrom throughout the USG to identify foreign terrorists and I criminals. ' M> ,^vl (njo / Indicators: A Immigrant Visa Cases. Non-Immigrant Visa Cases. Service enhancements. B. Status of name check enhancements. • Progress (as of January 2002): The decrease in immigrant visa (IV) case numbers from 669,872 in FYOO to 628,762 in FY01 was due to the extremely heavy demand from INS for visa numbers to adjust the status of large numbers of aliens already in the US. The nonimmigrant visa (NIV) demand in FY01 reached j "'•' 10,596,194 and was higher than projected, despite the disruption to international travel after 9/11. The • Border Biometric Program processed 2333,967 Border Crossing Cards. Since Congress did not extend the deadline on which Border Crossing Cards without biometric indicators expired, demand for new cards surged The event that had the greatest impact on visa processing prior to September 11 was the passage of the Legal Immigration Family Equity Act, which created two new nonimmigrant visa categories. The first of these new visas was issued on April 1,2001, and by the end of FY01 posts abroad had processed almost 34,000 of them. Beginning in 1996, using funds derived from Machine Readable Visa fees, we undertook a major modernization of consular systems. By March 2001, all visa data collected abroad was being replicated to the Consular Consolidated Database (CCD). to Mayj2ppl? consular officers abroad gained access to the CCD. The_details of visa issuance, once available only Jo thejxst taking acticttvamnQw available injeal%l§JS^XisA,Qffices^oBidwi(ie arid.TOnsular management n>Washington. This data and the associated flgitaXphotograpb&of NIV applicants proved to be critical to our ability to support the^antl-terrorist task, ^Orc^j8eijSeptember 11. As FY02 began, we had searched over 900 nonimmigrant visa records at the L-»

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DIPLOMATIC & CONSULAR PROGRAMS the INS forensic document lab, and are prepared to share all replicated non-immigrant visa files in the CCD as soon as INS is ready to receive them. We enhanced the capabilities of the namecheck system by deploying a Russo-Slavic namecheck algorithm. Since February 2001, information on all lost and stolen foreign passports reported to State has been entered into the Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS) and transmitted to the Interagency Border Inspection System (IBIS). We developed an e-form by which posts can report lost/stolen/missing foreign passports with US visas in them, resulting in a 500% increase in notifications. Transmission of information on lost and stolen US passports to IBIS began in London. We enhanced Diplomatic Security's connection to CLASS to provide support for increasing security needs. Washington-based agents now have desktop access to CLASS. We have long sought "serious violator" data from the US Customs Service and gained final agreement with Customs for the transfer of approximately 18,000 lookouts beginning in early in FY02. The lookouts come * from Customs through its direct electronic link to IBIS. CLASS already transmits its most serious lookouts electronically to IBIS for use by INS and other border inspection agencies. I

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In FY01, Canada with which we have shared terrorist lookout information since 1998, began reciprocal sharing via the TIPOFF, a counter-terrorism tool maintained by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INK) utilising sensitive intelligence and law enforcement information contributed by the CIA, NSA and FBI to watchlist known or suspected terrorists. TIPOFF can add lookouts directly to the CLASS namecheck database, where they are immediately available to Foreign Service posts worldwide. TIPQFF records currently comprise over 48.000 of the 5.8 million entrie^^jligjsJ3iJlieCI^ASS_systemViA t j(_ji entries, held to a higher standard of "biographicdatajis alsaenteredin the. V^^sy^emTc^faleTbyiNSa^C^oras. There are over23J3QQ TIPQPF entries in IBIS. In FYO preliminary figures indicate that there have been IT^trueJlPOFF hits for visa applicants checked through CLASS. Of those, 81 were denied, 14 abandonedltheirapplications, and four withdrew applications. There was Jn§uffidenhjJ^Sation in the 6tiier.c^ses to.ipake a findirig of jineligibility under Section 212 (a)(3)(B) L—ofthe immigration and KfannnaKiy Act. TIPOFF (via the IBIS system.) yielded 86 true hits from dsl*""*""*"*"^ terrorism database at ports of entry in FY01. Of these, 38 of the individuals in question were denied entry, \d one was arrested. Three were paroled for operational reasons, and 23 were questioned and admitted. I There was insufficient information in the other cases to deny admission.

The terrorist attacks of September 11 caused other agencies to share a great deal of information regarding terrorists with State. The number of TIPOFF entries into CLASS ranged from 256 to 364 in June through August 2001. In September, 990 entries were made. In early FY02, the President directed the creation of ; \n interagency Fo process. State is working closely with the FU'll- and the Homeland Security Council on this issue and others related to US border security. Again this year, we worked with the Department of Justice (INS and FBI) on legislation that would give consular and immigration officers access to certain crime information. We were not successful in having a bill introduced until after September 11. This and other provisions we had sought were included in the USA PATRIOT Act, enacted early in FY02. Consular officers now will have access to certain law enforcement and intelligence information that will aid in efforts to keep terrorists and other criminals out of the United States.

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