There’s been an interesting argument in Consular that has been going on for as long as I know—a battle between two world views. I think it really comes down to a question of, “who are our primary customers?” The obvious answer, that the customers are the people filling the waiting room, leads to some conclusions. Interviewing officers should be speedy, as polite as possible, and give people the benefit of the doubt. The other answer is that our customers are the American people. If the American people are our primary customers, consular officers need to worry less about speed and more about accuracy. For simplicity, I’ll call the former the Riyadh school and the latter the Jeddah school.
214b
Another big ramification of this is how you interpret section 214b of the Immigration and Nationality Act. 214b is the section of the law most commonly used to refuse a visa. This section says, “every alien… shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer, at the time of application for a visa, and the immigration officers, at the time of application for admission, that he is entitled to a nonimmigrant status…” Sound vague?
Well, many of the believers in the Riyadh school use a very strict interpretation, that unless our customers show some sort of immigrant intent, they should be issued a visa. In other words, anyone who has previously traveled, has good economic, family, and social ties to the country, or can otherwise convince the interviewing officer that they aren’t just planning to go up and stay should get a visa.
The Jeddah school sees things somewhat differently. Under their school of thought, a person who can’t show that they really intend to go up for a specific person (and therefore entitled to a specific nonimmigrant status) should be refused. If a person seems to be concealing the truth, or can’t convince the officer that they really do intend to go to Disney for four days, 214b requires that the officer refuse the visa.
9/11
The Riyadh school flourished for decades before 2001. Staffing gaps due to the “peace dividend” meant that many posts were woefully understaffed, meaning that efficiency and speed were of utmost importance. You don’t get angry letters from congress when you issue a visa, and the Ambassador doesn’t get confronted because the girlfriend of a vice-minister’s nephew got refused a visa. In its worst form, this combined to create a situation in which officers were encouraged to issue quickly unless there was something wrong.
The Riyadh school was widely discredited after 9/11. As the phenomenal 9/11 and Terrorist Travel says,
In the search for government officials potentially responsible for failing to prevent the attacks or, worse, enabling them, the spotlight turned on the State Department… The department’s officials were also criticized for speeding the process of issuing visas and interviewing few if any applicants in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where 17 of the 19 hijackers acquired their visas. With its reputation as a friend of foreigners, State was an easy target.
The Jeddah school now dominates the Consular Affairs bureau. in the aftermath of 9/11 section 214b wasn’t rewritten. However, things are different. Up-and-coming blogger NoDoubleStandards at Calling a Spade a Spade, explains his interviewing technique, one that is in line with this school:
What happens at the interview? I’m looking directly at the face of the applicant, not down at the documents. I want to see EXACTLY how the applicant responds to the questions I’m asking. I’m gauging the visceral reactions to the questions I’m asking. I’m evaluating the time it takes the applicant to formulate an “acceptable” answer. I’m looking for discrepancies between the answers and the information provided by the application and the supporting documents. I don’t make a production of looking at the documents in front of the applicants; I don’t want them to think that the documents carry more value than they actually do. The vast majority of documents provided aren’t material to the adjudication, in any case…
How can any human being make an accurate snap judgment in two minutes? You wouldn’t think it was possible, but it is. I wish I had a dollar for every time I refused an applicant who earned a great salary and demonstrated a sound travel history, and I was later provided with derogatory information. Why did I refuse these guys? Primarily ambiguity regarding purpose of travel. I don’t give a damn what you make or where you’ve been. Post 9/11, if you can’t tell me EXACTLY what you’ll be doing in the U.S., I won’t issue you a visa. I don’t have that luxury.
The Grey Area
Of course, these things are never black and white. The choice between speed and accuracy is a scale like any other, and among very experienced officers there may be no noticeable difference (except perhaps in what the officer is trying to be accurate in examining). Fashions in schools of thought are a lot like any other—they come and go. I’ll leave you by seconding veteran blogger Consul-at-Arms’s closing words from a related recent post, “There are vanishingly few exceptions to the interview requirement nowadays, and it’ll be important to hold that line when, as will inevitably occur, someone promotes the idea that it’s a waste of resources to interview all those applicants. Don’t fall into that trap.”
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I love the Riyadh-Jeddah paradigm. It works very well.
The irony here is that despite the fact the Jeddah school is in the ascendancy, the Visa Waiver Program is based on the Riyadh model — and that presents some really interesting philosophical arguments as well, particularly in the wake of the Bush administration’s recent effort to expand the program.
There’s a good blog entry to be written on that, I’m sure….
Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the quote and the link. I’ve linked back to you here: http://consul-at-arms2.blogspot.com/2009/05/re-battle-for-heart-and-soul-of.html
No body outside of consular cares.
This reminds me of the movie Mall Cop, where the guy says there is an argument in the mall security field on whether mall cops are “security guards” or “security officers.”
I’m consistently told to use my “gut” in consular adjudication and up the numbers despite the fact that I don’t have alot of experience. I’m sure that the average security and immigration conscious American taxpayer is thrilled to hear that.
To Not a CON: The article is quite interesting in understanding some first hand perspectives on how these difficult decisions are made–and made quickly. I’m not a consular officer or even in the foreign service.
Thanks, Hegemonist, for the good article and keep up the good work.
To Not a CON: Let’s put the silly cone-envy aside and get down to brass tacks, shall we? Like it or not, the visa adjudication process gives consular officers a hefty helping of authority in the border protection and anti-terrorism efforts, and with that authority come difficult decisions to be made. Which paradigm would you rather your consular officers follow as they conduct non-immigrant visa interviews across the globe? The visa-wielding Riyadh school of give now, ask questions later, or the Jeddah school that mandates a thoughtful, highly-selective approach to choosing our country’s visitors?
FSOs outside of consular should care, and I’m sad to see this issue tainted by your high school spitting-contest over who’s in the more important career track. You’re all diplomats, each with honor and great responsibility in your callings. I hope next time you’ll consider the facts objectively before throwing Mall Cop references at your own family.
I’m scheduled to take the FSOT in October. Now and then I get intimidated by the process, the sharp folks in the “Meet a Foreign Service Officer” videos, etc. But then I happen upon someone like “Not a CON,” with the charming spelling errors and Mall Cop wisdom, and realize that I just might have a shot. Thanks, man.
Hegemonist, great site here–a true service you’re providing.