Bureau of Consular Affairs

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The Bureau of Consular Affairs is a bureau of the United States Department of State within that department's management office. The mission of the Bureau is to administer laws, formulate regulations and implement policies relating to the broad range of consular services and immigration. As of 2005, the bureau is headed by the Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, Maura Harty.

1 Passports
2 Citizen support
3 Visas and immigration
4 Criticism
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Passports

Issuance of U.S. Passports to American citizens is the responsibility of the Bureau. According to Congressional testimony in April 2006, approximately 68 million Americans have valid US passports and the US issues more passports than any other nation. ^[1] Conservative estimates for fiscal year 2006 project the 13 million passport applications will be processed.^[2] Passports may be issued domestically in the US as well as by US Embassies or Consulates abroad to the US Citizens. In 2006, the Bureau of Consular Affairs will begin the wide-spread issuance of Electronic Passports or "e-passports." ^[3]

[edit] Citizen support

The Consular Affairs Office of Overseas Citizens Services advises and supports U.S. citizens and U.S. embassies and consulates around the world in such matters as:

Deaths
Arrests
Robberies
Citizenship and nationality
Federal benefits
Notarization of documents
International parental child abduction
International adoptions

To assist the traveling public, the bureau issues consular information sheets, travel warnings, and public announcements concerning conditions in countries where Americans may be planning to visit or reside.

[edit] Visas and immigration

Following regulations established by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), consular officers overseas, under the guidance of the Bureau's Office of Visa Services, are responsible for issuing all non-immigrant and immigrant visas. (Over 5.7 million non-immigrant visas and approximately 390,000 immigrant visas were issued in fiscal year 2002.)

The Bureau of Consular Affairs also administers the provisions of the INA as they relate to the Department of State in coordination with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement within the Department of Homeland Security.

[edit] Criticism

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Only about 800 to 1000 Consular Officers are serving abroad at any time. About three quarters of them perform consular work only as a mandatory steppingstone to traditional and more prestigious Department of State duties such as economic and political reporting, cultural work, trade promotion, or administrative work.

All 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were issued visas by the U.S. Department of State, by Consular Officers who have on average only two or three minutes to interview each applicant for a visa. The Department of State has been criticized for chronically underfunding, understaffing, and sometimes neglecting the visa function. For some time efforts have been underway to transfer the visa function away from the Department of State to the Department of Homeland Security, which handles all aspects of immigration and naturalization except the visa function.