The General Accounting Office (GAO) released its report studying visa applications by science students and scholars.  Each year, thousands of international science students and scholars apply to enter the US on student and exchange programs.  These students bring diversity and intellectual knowledge to the US, as well as benefit the US economy, according to the GAO.  At a hearing held by the House Committee on Science on March 26, 2003, witnesses expressed their concerns about the length of time it takes for science students to obtain a visa.  Because of delays in the visa process, the US may be losing the top international students to other countries.

The GAO study, titled “Improvements Needed to Reduce Time Taken to Adjudicate Visas for Science Students and Scholars,” found that because the State Department has not established specific criteria or a time frame for visa processing, the time it takes to adjudicate a visa depends on whether the visa applicant needs to undergo a security check, known as Visa Mantis, which was designed to protect against sensitive technology transfers.

By randomly sampling Visa Mantic cases from April to June 2003, the GAO found that it took an average of 67 days for the security check to be processed and for the State Department to notify the consular post.  GAO visits to posts in China, India and Russia in September 2003 found that many Visa Mantis cases had been pending for 60 days or more.  Consular officers said that they lacked clear guidelines on when to apply Visa Mantis checks and did not receive feedback on whether they were supplying enough information in their Visa Mantis requests.

The GAO concluded that delays were caused by the way in which Visa Mantis information was disseminated, insufficient instruction and feedback to Consular Officers and that the FBI's systems are not interoperable with DOS's systems.

The full report is available online at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04371.pdf.