RIYADH, 28 July — Misconceptions in the US media over presumed loopholes in the visa regulations led to the scrapping of the Visa Express Service in 210 countries, including the Kingdom, under a phased program.
This was disclosed to Arab News by Musarrat Hussain, general manager of Minhal Travels, who said it all started when it came to light that three of the 15 Saudi hijackers involved in the Sept.11 events had obtained visas through the US Visa Express Service.
Arab News tried to reach the US Embassy for comments, but nobody was available in the consular section.
Hussain said that against the background of the Sept.11 incidents, there was fierce criticism in the American media and the US Congress that there were loopholes in the visa regulations through which travel agencies in the Kingdom were manipulating to their advantage. The media also alleged that the embassy officials had no hold over the issuance of visas. “It is totally wrong to suggest that travel agencies were manipulating some perceived loopholes in the visa regulations.” The seven travel agencies approved by the US Embassy were merely helping the visa applicants in completing their application forms and forwarding them to the US Embassy. It was entirely up to the embassy in Riyadh and the consulate general in Jeddah to call the applicant for interview and decide whether to accept or reject the application,” the executive said.
He explained that the whole idea behind the US Visa Express Service was to avoid rush at the US Embassy for security reasons. Whether those reasons would be addressed by the embassy’s decision to scrap the Visa Express and accept application forms only between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. remains to be seen.
Another representative of the travel trade said the decision to abolish the visa processing system arose from misconception of the term “Express”. They misunderstood it as a means of speeding up the procedure by cutting corners and bypassing some regulations, while in fact it was only intended to avoid the overcrowding of applicants in the embassy and the consulate general. Current thinking in the US Embassy is in favor of receiving visa applications by telephone appointment. Whatever the modus operandi, the applications will have to be processed within the stipulated five-week period. Further, the move is to bring the visa regulation regime under the proposed Homeland Security Department for closer scrutiny of all visa applicants and plug loopholes, if any, in the existing system. Only time will tell how the new visa regime will pan out.
