Team 5 NOTES

Cornelius Danforth Scully III, retired Foreign Service Officer, consular affairs
4/15/03, SG Telcon
Topic: Background on the State Department consular affairs function

Missions of consular officials:

• visa adjudication
• welfare and protection of Americans abroad,
• immigration
• Originally included a trade promotion function, but
trade function shifted to other FS offices after WWII

The Immigration and Nationality Act required State to carry out:

• Visa operations; initiative for a visa may be taken from abroad (by visitor) or
from here (e.g. by family or employers)
• The issuance of passports to US citizens
• Determination of citizenship of US citizens abroad

Statistics: visas by category —

Charlie Oppenheim, Chief of Immigrant Visa Control and Reporting
But see INS for Canadian information b/c don't need visa
But see INS for multiple entries on same visas
So we don't know of 100,000 entries, how many are the same people.
Other current State Dept. officials:
Maura Hardy, Asst Sec Bureau of Consular Affairs, career FSO
Janice Jacobs, DAS for Visa Services
DAS Passports
DAS Overseas Citizens Services (former welfare and protection)
Director,Visa Office, Legislation and Regulations, Steve Fischel

Homeland Security legislation shifted visa function authority

For visa operations, DHS statute moved authority for visa policy to DHS but not people:
"Shall be exercised through the Dept of State"
Leaving such options as:
• Will DHS station their own people abroad?
• Or will FSO's do it under their direction?
• Or will DHS delegate back to SecState his authority to manage supervise and
direct his people do it? Etc
To be negotiated between State and DHS.

Authority/souces for State intelligence on potential security risks

Sec 105, Immigration and Nationality Act:
The Commr and the Administrator (Asst Sec Cons Aff)
Shall have the authority to maintain direct and continuous liaison with FBI, CIA
For the purpose of maintaining the internal security of the US
1. Index cards. Lookout system began in the 1920's with records on those people
previously been found to be ineligible to receive a visa, or so suspected,
So that all consuls would have available information and not have to research from
square one, consular officials created index cards which were distributed by the pouch

2. The visa Lookout book. Post-WWII index cards became unmanageable, and the
the visa look-out book was created from the index cards. The look-out book, was issued
quarterly with the names in alphabetical order.

3. Automated. In the 1960's, Al Moreland Dir of Visa office,

pioneered first automatic Visa look-out system, in Montreal

4. CLASS. Descendent of first system.

Other than previous denials, State remains primarily reliant on other agencies
FBI, CIA, DBA, DIA etc
Pretty good relationships with intelligence agencies on an institutional level - no big
fights over substance.
FBI did not always give complete information for legitimate reasons
Some external sources, newspaper accts of criminal trials
Some liaison with foreign law enforcement, but variable and info may be unreliable

5. State's counter-terrorism office, Bush I established (?)

6. Memorandum directing increased collection. Under Clinton I, 1993, Clifford

Wharton, Dep Sec to W. Christopher; clearance by Mary Ryan Asst Sec for Consular
Affairs: Ambassadors tasked to create committees to develop information about potential
terrorists, which caused fury at CIA over who runs the process, Ambassador or COM.
Viper was the codeword on cables with relevant information from Ambassadors about
known or suspected terrorists.

7. TIPOFF. John Areeza, INR. - how can we improve counter-terrorism efforts?

TIPOFF. Its major impact was on INS rather than State. TIPOFF created a cooperative
network of DOJ, DOS, the intelligence community, to make information available for
INS at the port of entry. In 1993 CLASS had previous denials, subsequent relevant
information entered, about visa holders and problem prospective visa applicants. But no
look back to see if subject had a visa. TIPOFF would be a central clearinghouse in INR to
receive data and a system to make it available to consular or inspector at port of entry.
TIPOFF enriched the CLASS information with a 24/7 contact number at State for
CLASS information - a code flag in CLASS available thru INS lookout systems referred
INS inspectors to a number to call at State office to get further information about
particular persons. This allowed INS to know they had to actually hold a person, rather
than parole them and refer them for inspection in 2 weeks.

Issue: intel agency might deny State information about subject's place and DOB,
making it impossible to confirm identity - have there been agreements on this?
Generally, intelligence reports may not have DOB/POB to match against biometric of the
person in front of you. Jose Gonzales is in the intel. file, but Jose Sta. Maria Mercedes
Gonzales from Sta. Maria de los Cruces is standing in front of you. What to do?

Opinion on visa function and terrorism. Important not to throw the baby out with the
bathwater. Security concerns should not be the sole driving force. Principal trap is that
other functions are considered irrelevant, e.g. how to distinguish between temporary
workers and business visitor, somewhat arcane and not of interest for security but critical
for U.S. economy and for groups like Chamber of Commerce, National Assn of
Manufacturers. Also, from a career development/personnel recruitment perspective, an
FSO entering the consular speciality (located under Under Secretary for
Management) needs assignments in DC as well as overseas. If consular function is
moved to DHS, consular officials in the field would no longer have a place to rotate
through hi DC. This would result in the disintegration of the consular speciality within
the FS.