The Department of State's Border Security ProgramInvesting in America's Security

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the Committee:

Thank you for inviting me to testify before you today on the Department of State’s Border Security Program. I am pleased to explain both the strategy employed by the Department of State in its Border Security Program and then how that strategy is implemented in the day-to-day operations of the Bureau of Consular Affairs.

The Border Security Program at the Department of State is a complex mission involving the activities of a number of bureaus and offices. Funded largely through the Department’s limited fee retention authorities for consular services, the Border Security Program exists to strengthen the security of the United States by “pushing outward” our borders. The Department has followed a consistent and multi year strategy that focuses on:

• Providing accurate and timely information to all personnel responsible for processing passports, adjudicating visas and providing other consular services.

• Ensuring that all personnel responsible for Border Security services have the business quality hardware and software they need to fulfill their responsibilities.

• Connecting all overseas and domestic operations responsible for Border Security together through high-speed networks, which make possible such powerful tools as the CLASS namecheck system and the Consolidated Consular Database (CCD).

• Investing in our people to ensure that they have the training needed to provide quality Border Security Services. Covering the operating costs of many Department of State personnel who provide Border Security services.

• Ensuring the integrity of our people, processes and products.

In terms of Consular Affairs, our mission is to help Americans abroad, facilitate legitimate international travel, and prevent the travel to the United States of foreigners who are likely to engage in activities harmful to our country. We have no higher responsibility than the protection of our citizens and safeguarding our country’s borders through the Border Security Program, and we are determined to carry out this responsibility in the best and most effective manner possible.

In FY 2005, the priorities of CA are:

• protecting our homeland by strengthening the visa process as a tool to identify potential terrorists and others who should not receive visas and preventing those people from entering the United States;

• protecting Americans by ensuring that they have the consular information, services, and assistance they need to reside, conduct business, or travel abroad;

• providing Americans with timely and effective passport services and a secure travel document; and

• providing consular personnel worldwide with the tools and training they need to carry out these responsibilities.

One of the most important tools we can provide our consular officers abroad is information that will help them identify and deny a visa to a terrorist, criminal or other ineligible alien. Our goal is to push the borders of the United States out as far from our shores as possible to stop a problematic or questionable traveler overseas. To this end, our coordinated efforts with law enforcement and intelligence agencies have more than doubled the names of known or suspected terrorists and other ineligible aliens in our databases. We will continue to seek opportunities for data sharing with federal agencies that have a role in the visa process or interact with visa recipients. In fact, the majority of the data in our consular lookout system now derives from other agencies, especially those in the law enforcement and intelligence communities.

I am particularly proud that an activity funded through the Department’s Border Security Program – the TIPOFF program – is a key building block for the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), which will maintain the principal database on known and suspected terrorists in a highly classified form. The TIPOFF database with its approximately 120,000 records was transferred to TTIC on November 17, 2003. TTIC, together with the separate Terrorist Screening Center, will eliminate the stovepiping of terrorist data and provide a more systematic approach to posting lookouts on potential and known terrorists.

We are also currently engaged with DHS in implementing a biometrics program to track the entry and exit of foreign visitors by using electronically scanned fingerprints and photographs. This new system, which begins with consular officers collecting electronically scanned fingerprints at consular sections abroad and continues with DHS’s US-VISIT program at ports of entry and departure, will create a coordinated and interlocking network of border security. We began our new Biometric Visa Program in September 2003, and it is now operational at more than 70 visa-adjudicating posts. With our aggressive rollout schedule, the program will be in effect at all visa-adjudicating posts by the congressionally mandated deadline of October 26, 2004. The inclusion of additional biometrics, in addition to the photograph that has always been collected, in international travel documents is an important step in continuing to improve our ability to verify the identity of prospective travelers to the United States. In the process of screening visas and passports domestically and abroad, additional biometrics can serve as a useful adjunct to existing screening processes that identify individuals who might be terrorists, criminals, or other aliens who might represent a security risk to the United States.

Other visa-related initiatives that will be funded through the on-going Border Security Program include:

• Re-engineer the interagency visa clearance process to allow stronger accountability and quicker processing.

• Improve the capacity of CLASS to handle additional information such as Interpol and deportation lookout information, and lost and stolen passport data.

• Continue to work with countries that are eligible for the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) and with ICAO to meet the requirement that those countries incorporate biometric identifiers in their passports by October 2004, as congressionally mandated.

• Review facial recognition results from initial test deployment at visa posts to determine how it may benefit screening in the operational environment.

• Introduce new, tamper-resistant and machine-readable immigrant visa foil. This new machine-readable immigrant visa process will include digitized photo and fingerprints.

• Eliminate crew-list visas and require all seafarers to obtain individual visas.

Passport Services:

Just as we are committed to the most secure adjudication process and documentation to support the visa process, the same is true in terms of what we consider to be the world’s most valuable document--the U.S. passport. In FY-03, Passport Services issued over seven million passports. We recently completed the system-wide introduction of photodigitization technology to support passport printing. That effort has been so successful that we have, in turn, moved the production of passports issued abroad to our U.S. domestic production facilities so that we can take advantage of the significant security improvements embodied in the photodigitization process. But, we also have many other initiatives underway. We will proceed with our efforts to enhance biometrics in U.S. passports and bring our passport into compliance with international standards established in May 2003. The inclusion of a “smart” chip in the passport, on which we will write the bearer’s biographic information and photograph, will increase the security of the document. This initiative is consistent with U.S. legislation that requires our Visa Waiver Program participants to take such a step, but it is not required. We are nonetheless pursuing the initiative because it supports U.S. national security. This new passport will further strengthen our ability to reliably link the authorized bearer of a passport to its user.

We are completely redesigning the U.S. passport and its security features. And, since the passport process is only as strong as the underlying adjudication process, we are strengthening our datasharing efforts with agencies in order to help confirm the identity of applicants. We will enhance our computer systems and provide for expected upgrades to accommodate the production of passports. To protect the over 60 million passport records stored on-line and provide redundant systems to support other agencies that require access to these vital records, new storage and server systems will be procured in FY 2004 and FY 2005. Again, these activities are funded as part of the Border Security Program.

Management and Organizational Excellence:

We continue to strengthen homeland security by ensuring that the consular function has appropriate facilities and is staffed at sufficient levels by consular officers who are trained to screen out terrorists. As part of the Border Security Program, the Department is establishing 93 new consular positions -- 13 domestic and 80 overseas in FY-04 and is requesting 60 additional positions in FY-05-- 15 domestic and 45 overseas. In addition, the Department plans to establish 68 new positions overseas in FY-04 and is requesting 63 in FY-05 as part of the Consular Associate replacement program. These additional positions will give us the ground troops necessary to staff our first line of defense.

We place a high priority on maintaining efficient and state-of-the-art systems and leveraging technology to the extent feasible because of the global nature of consular operations and the necessity for interagency data-sharing. We will continue to replace IT equipment for consular sections abroad as well as Consular Affairs domestic operations on a 3 to 4 year cycle, provide updated remote and computer-based training on consular systems to supplement hands-on training by visiting experts at least once every 12 to 18 months, and maintain Support Desks to provide key links between employees and the development and support elements in the Consular Systems Division.

Good management requires effective internal controls. We continue to strengthen management controls via the issuance of standard operating procedures (SOPs), conducting Management Assessment and Internal Control Reviews at passport agencies, certifications that management controls are in place at consular offices, and sending Consular Management Assistance Teams (CMATs) to work collaboratively with posts toward our common goal of protecting homeland security and our borders. In FY 2005, the CMATs will maintain a robust schedule of visits to assess the integrity of management controls, effective resource utilization and space allocation, and the extent to which Department?mandated SOPs have been understood and implemented. CMATs serve as a resource in identifying and helping to resolve post needs, as well as providing guidance and counseling as appropriate. CA uses its new Vulnerability Assessment Unit, a joint initiative with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, to analyze consular data, systems, and processes to detect anomalies in visa and passport processing, thus reducing CA's vulnerability to system manipulation.

The Department’s Border Security Program is a critical element in the Department of State’s goal to protect American citizens and safeguard the nation’s borders. By focusing on sharing information, providing sufficient infrastructure and human resources, increasing connectivity, and enhancing the integrity of our processes and documents, the Department of State is ensuring that we have a Border Security Program in which the American people can place their trust and confidence.

Thank you and I welcome your questions.