MANAMA, 7 April 2005 — The United States is rolling out the welcome mat for foreigners wishing to visit or study at colleges and universities there with a streamlined visa application process that will take as little as a day in some countries.

New technology will help reduce the wait time to obtain visas at US embassies, as part of an effort to attract more visitors and students to the United States, State Department officials said Tuesday at a press conference in the Bahraini capital Manama.

The move comes after the Bush Administration was lobbied by university presidents and ambassadorial officials to review the process and make it easier for applicants to obtain visas. It also comes ahead of the 2005 fall semester, which begins in September at most American universities, allowing students enough time to apply.

Recent figures issued by the American Embassy here showed that there were more than 31,000 students from the Middle East studying in the US for the academic year 2003-04.

Visitors and students from Bahrain now can obtain multiple-entry visas valid for five years, within a day, which is similar to the processing time that was in effect before Sept. 11, 2001.

US officials noted the application process will be universal, though the waiting time will vary from country to country depending on the number of applications in process.

The 9/11 attacks prompted stringent visa requirements and discouraged many students from applying to universities there opting instead to seek education in Australia and Europe. American consular official Larilyn Reffett said steps have been taken to ease the process while maintaining a high level of security. “There have been a lot of changes in the visa policy in the past couple of years,” Reffett said. “After 9/11, there were a lot of changes that came in very quickly, and some of these changes were not very well understood.”

Reffett added that new biometrics and facial recognition technologies implemented by the State Department and Homeland Security over the past two years have virtually eliminated the waiting time while increasing the level of security. She also indicated that technology has been very successful and allows embassies to conduct checks more quickly and accurately.

Biometrics allows officials to conduct background checks of individuals who apply for visas by digital fingerprints and then run through the security databases. Children under 14 and older people do not get finger-scanned but instead undergo facial recognition, which takes 24 hours to process.

Rebecca Fong, also a consular official, said student visas go through the same process as tourist visas, but with the additional requirement of the candidate being interviewed by one of embassy personnel to ensure the candidate qualifies for admission in the academic institution.

“Student visas cannot be issued earlier than 90 days prior to the start date of coursework,” Fong said. “Once the visa is issued, the student may enter the US no more than 30 days ahead of studies.” Similar interview requirements had been in effect before 9/11.

Aleta Wenger, press attaché at the US Embassy in Manama, said the US government worked hard over the past year to iron out any problems that visa applicants faced.

Washington wants people to travel to the US, she said. “We want them to come as tourists, as business professionals and students.”

Wenger added that they were expecting more Bahrainis to travel to the States following the recent signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Bahrain, which is expected to be ratified in the coming months. She also said that expatriates living in the country could apply for US visas provided they prove their residency.

Wenger added that there are no travel restrictions within the United States on students or people traveling there, but universities will be tracking student attendance. In the past there was a number of cases where students had arrived in the United States to attend classes but failed to continue their studies because of lack of supervision.

The largest number of GCC students at American universities during the 2003-04 academic year came from Saudi Arabia with 3,521 students registered, followed by Kuwait with 1,846 and the UAE with 1,248 students. Bahrain had 444 students in the States.