NEW YORK, 10 September 2004 — Tomorrow marks the third year since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon. The lingering economic impact of the attacks have caused some people to speculate on whether the terrorists succeeded far more than ever imagined.
According to David Hamod, president of the Washington-based National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce, the effects of 9/11 are devastating regarding America’s strict new visa policies and their effects on nations and individuals around the world.
Hamod, who travels frequently throughout the Gulf and Middle East, said many leaders in today’s Arab world were educated in the US, which helped them develop an affinity for the country. This will not be true for the next generation of Arab leaders who are being denied the opportunity to study here.
“This will have an impact for decades to come regarding the very nature of US-Arab relationships, including leadership,” he said.
Visa restrictions have also “profoundly affected” US companies doing business internationally, due to restrictions on visas to the US. Despite this, there is little effort to “quantify the effect that these new policies are having across-the-board on US firms,” said Hamod.
A just-released report compiled by the NUSACC studies the impact of US visa policies on the US economy, and can be read on its website at www.nusacc.org.
Hamod said much of the data remains anecdotal and on a sector-by-sector basis, frustrating efforts by the US business community to provide a “big picture” assessment of how the new visa policies are undercutting America’s private sector.
But enough is available to create tremendous concern. A June 2004 study by The Santangelo Group entitled “Do Visa Delays Hurt US Business?” found that US companies suffered $30.7 billion in financial impacts between July 2002 and March 2004 due to delays/denials in the processing of business visas. Hamod says this included revenue losses of $25.53 billion and indirect costs of $5.15 billion. The US trade deficit during this period totaled $798.5 billion, so the $30.7 billion loss due to visa delays equates to nearly four percent of the US trade deficit.
The single biggest reason foreign students have not come to the US is due to the restrictive visa program, according to survey last October by the Institute of International Education. The IIE says losses to the US economy due to a drop in Arab students last year amounted to at least $43,126,207.
Visa hassles are affecting more than the student and business community: A synopsis by several of the nation’s leading medical facilities suggests that the US medical community is losing at least $1 billion per year in direct international patient care. When indirect revenues were considered (losses by hotels, restaurants, transportation firms, etc.) the number jumps to $4 billion per year now going to other nations.
Hamod said new visa requirements are also precluding international medical graduates (IMGs) from entering the US. According to the American Immigration Law Foundation, foreign-born medical professionals in the United States account for 25.2 percent of all physicians here, and 1.1 million immigrants account for 13 percent of health care providers in the United States.
Tourism has also been hit hard. Over the past three years, the loss of international travel to the US has cost the US economy $15.3 billion, according to the Travel Industry Association of America.
As for Saudi Arabia, the Institute for Middle Eastern Policy Research observed: “If new procedures turn away desirable Saudi visitors from the US — US education, business travel, and tourism industries could easily lose an estimated $4.7 billion in Saudi travel revenue over the next decade.”
The chamber lists a number of recommendations and urges the US government to undertake a “comprehensive assessment that covers the globe and takes into account as many different sectors as possible.”
