Because concerns have been raised that the number of international students and exchange visitors coming to the United States has been negatively affected by the US visa process, Congress asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to testify on its work on the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) and related issues.  The GAO released a preliminary report on this matter in June 2004 and is now augmenting its earliler findings. 

In June 2004, GAO reported improvement based on several indicators, including reports showing that certain system performance requirements were being met, a decline in new requests for system corrections and the views of officials representing 10 educational organizations.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attributed the improvement to several different actions, including the installation of new software and increased Help Desk staffing and training.

However, GAO also reported that several performance requirements were not being formally measured, so that DHS might not be able to identify serious system problems in time to address them before they could affect the success of SEVIS.  It was also reported that educational organizations were concerned about proposed options for collecting SEVIS fees. Therefore, it made recommendations aimed at improving system performance measurement and resolving educational organizations’ Help Desk and fee concerns. 

Since June 2004, DHS reported that it has taken steps to address GAOrecommendations, and in particular it has taken a number of actions tostrengthen Help Desk support. Moreover, educational organizations

generally agree that SEVIS performance has continued to improve, and that their past fee collection concerns have been alleviated. However, these educational organizations still cite residual Help Desk problems, which they believe create hardships for students and exchange visitors. Most of these organizations, however, do not believe that SEVIS is the reason for the declining number of international students and exchange visitors coming to the United States.  

To help strengthen SEVIS performance and address educational organizations’ concerns, the GAO report recommended that DHS do the following: 

·         assess the extent to which defined SEVIS performance requirements are still relevant and are being formally managed;

·         provide for the measurement of key performance requirements that are not being formally measured;

·         assess educational organization Help Desk concerns and take appropriate action to address these concerns;

·         and provide for the expeditious implementation of the results of the

·         SEVIS fee rulemaking process.