Executive Summary

Before September 11, 2001, U.S. Consular Corps visa processes in many countries functioned with inadequate oversight and lax quality control.  Some DS-156 forms submitted by the 15 hijackers to Consular Officers in Saudi Arabia were illegible and incomplete.  However, visas were granted without interviews or background checks.  We can now say with certainty that U.S. visa procedures failed Americans on at least 15 separate occasions in Saudi Arabia.

Fortunately, new procedures overseen by the Department of Homeland Security present more rigorous and thorough procedures, which protect both U.S. and Saudi security interests.  Visa procedures that function efficiently and effectively have immense consequences for the United States and Saudi Arabia.  If new procedures turn away desirable Saudi visitors, U.S. education, business travel and tourism industries could easily lose an estimated $4.7 billion in travel revenue over the next decade.  More importantly, if the United States does not proactively communicate that America is still open to Saudi business; long-term social, cultural and indirect benefits from economic bonds woven into the U.S.-Saudi relationship could unravel and fray.

U.S. Visas for Terrorists, Wherein lies the Blame?

During testimony to the 9/11 Commission on March 24, 2004, former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke introduced his testimony with a stunning apology:

Richard Clarke’s blanket apology cannot cover U.S. Consular Corps officers stationed in Saudi Arabia.  Procedures for processing student and tourist visas for 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were ignored or not followed prior to visas being granted.  Images of the DS-156 forms submitted by the hijackers (published in the magazine National Review) reveal scribbled and incomplete documents no conscientious American bureaucrat in any organ of government should have accepted.   No clarifications on the data were sought by U.S. Consular Officers, and no personal follow up interviews were ever conducted.   It has become clear that unlike Richard Clarke, U.S. Consular Officers were not "trying hard."  Their lack of attention to procedures and quality control meant they were destined to fail at some point in time.   

On the visa front, a multitude of restrictive new visa procedures, rigorously and sometimes painfully enforced, have now replaced the largely ignored original procedures.  Friction from new restrictions may have actually deterred otherwise eager visitors from entering the United States.  Likewise, lingering concerns about the air travel in general and the safety of Saudi travel in the United States has caused a decline in Saudi visits to the United States.

The 9/11 Visa Fallout

Striking the right balance between enforced visa application processes and efficiently approving the visits of the vast majority of Saudi Arabian citizens, who pose no threat to the United States, has been a challenge.  After 9/11, the U.S. State Department announced a new extended visa waiting period.  It states that all men between the ages of 16 and 45 from countries with large Arab and Muslim populations will be subject to a longer waiting period on nonimmigrant visa applications.  It imposed a more rigorous review of Arabs and Muslim men specifically, and the Saudis in particular. New visa procedures are now applied to applicants who cannot meet the nonimmigrant intent requirements as well as to all Saudi males.   As a result, many legitimate Saudi businessmen and the much larger share of Saudi visitors, who are students and tourists, have been forced to alter, and in some cases, partially cancel their plans to come to the United States. (See exhibit #2)

New procedures, as one official put it, created "a substantial fall-off" of Saudi visitors to the United States.  It is even more certain the new perceptual barriers that delay or prevent Saudis from coming into the United States are harmful to the long-term interests of the Unites States.  Long lines at the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia, waiting four to six weeks to obtain a visa, personal slights and ill treatment at U.S. airports, and safety concerns directly undermine ongoing trade, bilateral finance and cultural exchanges.  However inconvenient this is for the Saudis, Americans interested in revitalizing longstanding service export relationships are also highly concerned.

The Economic Impact of U.S.-Saudi Visa Policy

In 2004, 124,000 U.S. service and manufacturing jobs are directly related to U.S.-Saudi trade.   The IRmep forecasts that the worst case loss in travel related services, education and tourism revenue (excluding airfare or special expenditures such as healthcare visits) could reach U.S. $4.7 billion between 2002-2011.   This scenario assumes that Saudi visits are not rejuvenated by new outreach programs.  (See exhibit 3)

Temporary visitors from Saudi Arabia grew on average 2% per year in the 1980s and 1990s.  The 2002 visitor decline reversed a stable and reliable growth trend.  If this new trend were to be reinforced by a combination of waning demand, fear of travel in the United States and truly restrictive permanent U.S. visa procedures, we could anticipate a continued -11% average annual growth rate in Saudi visitors over the next decade.  This would reduce total Saudi visits from 30 million in 2002 to 10 million by the year 2011.

Few Americans or Saudis would wish to enable this type of decade long "lose-lose" trend.  Some U.S. government leaders have already rushed to assure the Saudis that they are welcome in the United States.  The U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Robert Jordan, stated in November 2001 that, "he was of the view that the U.S. visa policy on nonimmigrant and for business has to change, that Saudi businessmen are welcome in the United States."  Additionally, William Lash III, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce, in a trip to Saudi Arabia in November 2001 made an appeal to Saudi businessmen to travel to the United States.  Mr. Lash asserted that he is willing to escort Saudi businessmen wanting to do business in the United States.  This offer, while intended to be helpful, begs the question about why any Saudi or other international businessperson should need a special escort to the United States.   It also misses another equally important and more numerous U.S. interest -- foreign students and tourists.

Saudi business executives accounted for 12.6% of total visitors.  Students and their families were 33.5% for temporary visitors, though their overall numbers have dropped in U.S. colleges and universities.  However, conditions for a recovery have improved as universities reach out to Saudi Arabia through focused recruitment.  Universities in this case may be illuminating the path toward success for tourism and other American travel service industries.  In the 9/11 aftermath, many foreign students were not sure that if they leave the United States to visit their families for the summer, that they will be allowed to return to resume and complete their studies.  Universities and international student associations have worked hard to ensure that students will not find themselves in limbo with no choice but to enroll in a new institution in a different country.   Universities worry about declines in student body diversity.  The economic benefit of efficient, effective visa processes for students and other travelers is also clear.   Attracting and keeping a flow of these visitors will help restore previous visitor levels and resumption of the historic 2% annual visitor growth rate.

Exhibit #5 2002-2011 Forecast Saudi Visitor Recovery Scenario (Source: IRmep 2004)

An accelerated recovery and growth resumption strategy necessitates communication campaigns targeting business and tourist visitors in Saudi Arabia.  These types of communications, driven by private business associations and the U.S. government, should communicate the key messages and value propositions clearly:  America wants students and trainees back in American classrooms, executives in U.S. boardrooms and tourists in Disneyland.  Americans already know there is no better land for tourism and business.  The challenge is to communicate this to the Saudis.  Efficient and effective visa processes and a "welcome wagon" communications campaign is not only the right thing to do, it would also create $5.7 billion in U.S. travel revenue over the decade.

Exhibit #6 2002-2011 Forecast Travel Revenue Recovery Scenario (Source: IRmep 2004)

The United States and Saudi Arabia continue to face many global challenges.  However, big challenges are effectively confronted by broadening and amplifying the lines of communication.  Closing the door on the Saudis, or letting them think we’ve closed the door, is not the way forward.  It is also not the American way.  

Ms. Hsu holds an Economics degree from the University of London. Ms. Hsu's analysis has been published in the US, Europe and the Middle East, including Al Ahram, and the Media Monitors Network. She appears on Palestinian, Jordanian and British television and radio as well as within the United States. Ms Hsu was an organizer of the 2003 Harvard Symposium "Promoting Understanding between the Arab World and the U.S.", and serves on the Board of the Atlanta Chapter of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee. Ms Hsu worked for ten years as a financial advisor serving clients in the United Kingdom and United States.

Hassan Elkhalil, Esq. practices Immigration Law in Atlanta Georgia.   Mr. Elkhalil has B.S. in Business Administration from the American University of Beirut, a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Tennessee, a Juris Doctor from John Marshall Law School, and the LL.M. from the University of Missouri, Columbia school of law.  Mr. Elkhalil has written previous articles on civil rights and immigration, and currently is working on a book titled “The Law of Nations.” Mr. Elkhalil can be reached at email address: hassan@elkhalillaw.com    

Grant F. Smith is the Director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRMEP) in Washington , D.C. ( http://www.irmep.org ). Before joining the Institute, Smith served for three years as senior analyst and later program manager of international research at The Yankee Group Research, Inc., a Boston based research and consulting firm owned by the Reuters PLC group. He worked closely managing business plan development and financing due diligence with the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and many consortium investors and corporations on over $3.0 billion in investment projects in over 40 countries. 

Preceding his tenure at Yankee Group, Smith taught graduate level finance and marketing courses for five years at Colombia's most prestigious business school, the Colegio de Estudios Superiores de Adminstración (CESA). He coordinated executive seminars, exchanges, simulations and programs between CESA and Harvard, Berkeley, and other U.S. universities. He also served as president of Smith & Sefair Zaher Ltda., a Bogota based technology and management consulting firm. While there, he consulted clients in the insurance, banking and industrial sectors on business process improvement, business planning and information systems technology strategies. Before that, he was marketing manager at American Express Financial Advisors corporate headquarters. 

Smith received his Master's degree in International Management from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Minnesota and has completed postgraduate certificate work in information systems at New York University .

ABOUT IRMEP   The Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) is a Washington D.C. based think tank working to research, define, communicate and promote America's real interests in the Middle East. Founded in 2002, the Institute became an independent non-profit IRS recognized tax-exempt organization in 2003. IRmep promotes the peaceful settlement of regional and international disputes by returning the U.S. to a higher foreign policy role: that of a just, secular, and development oriented regional influence. IRmep produces research, publications, commentary, focused policymaker educational events and research tour programs to the Middle East. The heart of the IRmep's work is academically, not ideologically, driven research. The Institute's network of analysts is composed of experienced university research academics with reviewers in the international business and diplomatic communities.

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