Department of Homeland Security officials will be traveling to Indonesia in the upcoming months in order to ensure a speedier application process.  Visitors from Indonesia, especially students, should start to see speedier visa approvals.

While decisions concerning visa applications will remain with officers at the consulate, the incoming DHS officials will serve as a resource for the consular officers.  The DHS officers should provide “expert advice to consular officers regarding security threats relating to the adjudication of visa applications or classes of applications, review visa applications and conduct investigations involving visa matters,” according to a statement by J. Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman of the Department of State, as quoted on the U.S. embassy website.

The new process is being implemented to try to improve the number of Indonesian students in America.  The U.S. has experienced a 10 percent drop in the number of Indonesian students visiting since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

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The U.S. embassies at Abu Dhabi and Vancouver began taking fingerprints of visa applicants earlier this month.  The system will be implemented at all the 260 stations around the world by October 26 of next year.

Fingerprinting will affect the 26,000 Vancouver citizens who wish to enter the U.S. to work or study, but not those who want to travel to the U.S. for vacation.  Machines have been installed in the Consulate at Dubai, where the process has already begun. By 2004, visa holders will be required to again be fingerprinted once they enter the U.S.

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A raid this week on various small businesses in Northern California left 31 people facing deportation when they appear before an immigration judge this week.  The undocumented workers, from India, Mexico, Pakistan, Nepal, and El Salvador, were detained on various immigration charges, including overstaying non-immigrant visas and illegal entry into the U.S.

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USA Today reported on Wednesday, November 5 that the FBI believes that an al Qaeda operative entered the United States before the September 11 attacks to serve as the “20^th hijacker” but left before the attack.  FBI officials, however, stated that the operative never entered the United States and was denied access at the border. 

FBI officials continue to look into reasons as to why one of the four hijacked planes carried only four hijackers while the others carried five, totaling 19.