[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CONSULAR AFFAIRS AND THE COVID-
19 CRISIS: ASSESSING THE STATE
DEPARTMENT'S RESPONSE TO THE
PANDEMIC
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
July 21, 2020
__________
Serial No. 116-130
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,
or http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
42-320 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman
BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York Member
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida JOE WILSON, South Carolina
KAREN BASS, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts TED S. YOHO, Florida
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
AMI BERA, California LEE ZELDIN, New York
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin
DINA TITUS, Nevada ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York BRIAN MAST, Florida
TED LIEU, California FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
DEAN PHILLPS, Minnesota JOHN CURTIS, Utah
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota KEN BUCK, Colorado
COLIN ALLRED, Texas RON WRIGHT, Texas
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania GREG PENCE, Indiana
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey STEVE WATKINS, Kansas
DAVID TRONE, Maryland MIKE GUEST, Mississippi
JIM COSTA, California
JUAN VARGAS, California
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff
Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
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Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
AMI BERA, California, Chairman
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota LEE ZELDIN, New York, Ranking
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York Member
TED LIEU, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey KEN BUCK, Colorado
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
Sid Ravishankar, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Brownlee, Ian, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of
Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of State..................... 7
King, Karin, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Overseas Citizen
Services, U.S. Department of State............................. 15
APPENDIX
Notice........................................................... 36
Minutes.......................................................... 37
Attendance....................................................... 38
RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Responses to questions submitted for the record from
Representative................................................. 39
INFORMATION SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Information submitted for the record............................. 88
CONSULAR AFFAIRS AND THE COVID-19 CRISIS: ASSESSING THE STATE
DEPARTMENTS RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05a.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joaquin Castro
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Castro. The Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations will come to order. Today's subject is Consular
Affairs in the COVID-19 Crisis: Assessing the State
Department's Response to the Pandemic.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
recess of the committee at any point, and all members will have
5 days to submit statements, extraneous material, and questions
for the record, subject to the length limitation in the rules.
To insert something into the record, please have your staff
email the previously mentioned address, or contact full
committee staff.
As a reminder to members, staff, and all others physically
present in this room, per recent guidance from the House Office
of the Attending Physician, masks must be worn at all times
during today's proceedings, except when a member is speaking in
a microphone.
Please also sanitize your seating area.
The chair views these measures as a safety issue, and,
therefore, an important matter of order and decorum for this
proceeding. Please keep your video function on at all times,
even when you are not recognized by the chair.
Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves,
and please remember to mute yourself after you finish speaking.
Consistent with House Resolution 965 and the accompanying
regulations, staff will only mute members and witnesses as
appropriate when they are not under recognition to eliminate
background noise.
Okay. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended our lives in ways
it seemed unimaginable just a few months ago. We can all
remember late March when the entire world seemed to be changing
by the minute. Now, Americans across the country are faced with
both the health and economic crisis that is far from over, and
in many places, within our country, only getting worse.
``Unprecedented'' is a word that probably gets overused,
but it certainly applies to the situation at the U.S.
Department of State. The U.S. Department of State faced many
challenges during the pandemic. The U.S. Government certainly
has a long history of repatriating citizens, but never before
had so many Americans in so many different countries and
regions needed to be repatriated at the same time.
The challenge was not simply arranging enough flights to
get Americans home; many Americans were located in rural areas,
and internal lockdowns in those countries often made it very
difficult to get people to the cities where flights were
leaving from. There were numerous instances where people needed
to take boats in order to reach buses that took them to cities
to get on flights.
Often, the State Department had to negotiate each of these
travel plans individually with host governments. The effort was
not seamless, especially in its early days. I heard from many
people who were stuck abroad and felt as though they weren't
getting the support from the State Department that they needed.
There were major technology issues with the STEP Program.
There were also larger issues, such as the announcement banning
traveling to and from Europe, which caused a panic, resulting
in overcrowded conditions in airports during a pandemic.
Overall, though, the State Department's repatriation effort
has been a success. The State Department brought over 100,000
Americans home safely from 136 different countries and
territories. This achievement is a testament to the hard work
and dedication of our diplomats and civil servants who work
tirelessly, and often at great personal risk to themselves and
their families.
The State Department also did a good job of keeping
Congress informed of the repatriation efforts, which allowed us
to communicate with our constituents back home, and many of
Members of Congress, as you all know, to the witnesses, were
receiving requests from constituents often for their family
members who were somewhere abroad.
It is often difficult to convince folks of the value of the
State Department. I think their repatriation campaign is a
fantastic example of the tangible impact on how diplomats
improve the lives of Americans. When faced with an
unprecedented crisis, it was the U.S. State Department that got
Americans home safely.
Of course, we cannot simply rest on our laurels. One issue
that will plague Consular Affairs for years to come is a lack
of funding. Normally, the Bureau of Consular Affairs is funded
entirely by fees collected for services like issuing passports
and visas. Even the best of times, money is tight because the
Bureau can only charge what it costs to perform these consular
services, and hundreds of millions of dollars must be
transferred to the Treasury.
And now, travel has been nearly nonexistent since late
March, and is likely to remain significantly reduced in the
coming years. Today's hearing is an opportunity to discuss the
Bureau's fiscal situation as well.
There are also other challenges that we must address. One
is that many Americans now owe thousands of dollars for the
repatriation flights that the State Department arranged to get
them home. With the economy in tatters because of the pandemic,
many of these folks are unable to pay for these flights.
Even as countries begin opening up tourism, travel
restrictions against Americans remain in place in almost every
country, including among our closest allies in Europe. I hope
we can discuss what the State Department is doing to remove
these travel restrictions. This is work that is urgent, as many
Americans still remain in places other than their home, the
United States, and they would like to get here. And folks would
like to be able to travel and see relatives in other nations as
well, that right now are not allowing Americans to travel.
Finally, I think there is a danger that the Trump
administration will attempt to use this pandemic as an excuse
to advance its anti-immigrant agenda. We saw this with the
attempt to deport many foreign students, a move that provoked
so much outrage that the administration reversed itself. And
this is unlikely to be the last attempt to use the pandemic for
political purposes.
While safety must remain paramount, not only at home, but
also for our diplomats and public servants in embassies around
the world, we cannot forego the openness that has made this
country remarkable. This is true not only for moral reasons,
but also because immigration and tourism help propel our
economy, which is obviously in dire need.
So there is a lot of ground to cover and much to discuss,
but, before introducing our witnesses today from the State
Department, I would like to turn it over to our ranking member,
Lee Zeldin of New York, for his opening comment.
Mr. Zeldin. Thank you, Chairman Castro, and thank you to
our witnesses for being here today.
During the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, the
State Department was faced with the ultimate challenge to
protect and bring home American citizens abroad. As of June
2020, the State Department coordinated the repatriation of over
100,000 Americans on 1,140 flights from 136 countries and
territories. They worked 24/7 to repatriate American citizens
from around the globe, using every available resource, from
chartering flights, to partnering with U.S. commercial
airlines, to printing emergency passports to make sure every
American citizen who wanted to come home could.
With the help of the State Department, our office was able
to bring many constituents home. Some of the stories are
incredible. I will briefly share with you two.
A former Marine and his wife were taking a vacation in Peru
when everything shut down. Under martial law, Peru's hotels
shut down, leaving them stranded with no way out. The State
Department worked with them, calling hotels to find space for
them to sleep, and making sure they were near the airport and
ready to go the moment the plane arrived.
Another one of my constituents was in the Canary Islands
when the coronavirus pandemic hit. His mother was being
hospitalized in an ICU with pancreatitis in the Canary Islands
in Spain. Working with the State Department, we were able to
secure a medical jet to transport his mother to the United
States.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank those at the
State Department for stepping up to the plate during these
unprecedented times. We would like to hear from our witnesses
today on the lessons they learned in the earliest days of this
global repatriation effort.
Specifically, I would like to hear about the challenges
faced in countries like Peru, where there were a significant
number of American travelers who struggled getting home. We
want to ensure future repatriations can be carried out more
smoothly. Over 10,000 Americans were repatriated from Peru,
including constituents from my district, but the process was
not easy.
The Peruvian government was blocking the return of U.S.
citizens until it received assurances that its own citizens
could leave the U.S., essentially holding American citizens
hostage. That is unacceptable and must be met with a forceful
diplomatic response that the U.S. will not tolerate this kind
of threat.
As part of our oversight mandate, it is critical that this
committee evaluate the strategies that were effective, and look
into possible ways to enhance States' abilities to repatriate
American citizens in crisis.
Additionally, the State Department has expressed concerns
to this committee that it continues to see projected losses in
fee revenues. Congress must ensure that agencies that rely on
these revenues, from visa and passport fees, have the personnel
to handle the backlog.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how
Congress can help. I thank, again, the chair for scheduling
today's hearing, and I yield back.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Ranking Member Zeldin.
I will now introduce our distinguished witnesses, and thank
you all again for coming to testify.
Our witnesses for today's hearing are Ian Brownlee, the
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Consular
Affairs, and Karin King, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State for Overseas Citizens Services. And I will now recognize
each witness for 5 minutes, and, without objection, your
prepared written statements will be made a part of the record.
And I will first call on Mr. Brownlee for his testimony.
STATEMENT OF IAN BROWNLEE, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, BUREAU OF CONSULAR AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Brownlee. Chairman Castro, Ranking Member Zeldin,
members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to
testify today.
I would like to thank all of your offices for your help and
the support you gave us as we worked together to repatriate
those thousands of your constituents, our fellow Americans.
This has truly been an all-of-government effort. We have
coordinated with the CDC, DHS components, DOT, DoD, and the
Congress, to bring home over 110,000 U.S. citizens and lawful
permanent residents worldwide.
Throughout this outbreak, we provided, first daily, and
then twice weekly, briefings to both the House and the Senate
to keep you updated on our progress in helping your
constituents overseas.
Thank you also for the additional appropriations and
legislative authorities you provided in recent supplementals
supporting our ability to continue our work. Without that
assistance, we would not be able to continue helping those U.S.
citizens and lawful permanent residents overseas.
To help manage the changing workload and to support our
staff overseas, the Department of State established a
repatriation task force, including subunits focused on
congressional inquiries and cruise ships.
At our posts overseas, officers who normally adjudicated
visas shifted to American Citizens Services work, allowing the
Department to focus resources on our number-one priority
overseas: providing assistance to U.S. citizens.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your recognition of the Foreign
Services civil servants, but I would like to add to that my
thanks to our locally employed staff and eligible family
members who played a key role in exercising everything we did
during the repatriation of these U.S. citizens.
On March 20th, the Department temporarily suspended routine
visa processing and we began to significantly reduce passport
operations. These dual actions were taken for the health and
safety of both our employees and our customers. We project a
more than 50 percent drop in visa fee revenue and the similarly
dramatic decline in passport fee revenue due to COVID-19, with
total projected losses of over $1.4 billion this fiscal year.
We also foresee a continued strain on fee revenue throughout
the next fiscal year.
Thanks to the temporary expenditure authority provided in
the CARES Act, we have used the carry-forward balances from
certain fee revenue to maintain consular operations this fiscal
year. However, we are on track to substantially deplete
balances in those accounts by the end of this fiscal year.
Most of the Department's consular funding comes from fees
collected from visa applicants, and our current fee authorities
allow us to use a portion of these fees to cover the costs of
providing essential services to U.S. citizens abroad.
CA's fee-for-service model relies on a stable flow of visa
and passport applicants to fund those activities and
extraordinary activities such as large-scale repatriations. The
pandemic has severely disrupted consular fee revenue. Our
normal income is $3.5 billion annually. Relative to Fiscal Year
2019, we expect a drop of more than $1.4 billion this year, and
a comparable loss in the next fiscal year.
To continue offering emergency and routine services to U.S.
citizens overseas, including overseas voting assistance this
election year, we need additional authority, such as that
requested in the Fiscal Year 2021 budget, to better achieve
full cost recovery and to maintain continuity of operations for
these essential services until the anticipated recovery of
demand currently projected for Fiscal Year 2023.
Specifically regarding U.S. citizens services, the
administration's Fiscal Year 2021 budget proposes allocating
the costs to providing U.S. citizens services to security
surcharges applied to certain visas.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Zeldin. I look forward to
answering your questions and those of the other members of the
subcommittee.
My colleague, Deputy Assistant Secretary Karin King, will
speak more about our assistance to U.S. citizens.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brownlee follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Mr. Brownlee.
Ms. King? Oh, I think you need your microphone. No worries.
STATEMENT OF KARIN KING, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, OVERSEAS
CITIZEN SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ms. King. Chairman Castro, Ranking Member Zeldin, thank you
for the opportunity to testify today. I am proud to be here
representing not only the Office of Overseas Citizens Services,
OCS, here in Washington, but the consular officers and locally
engaged staff worldwide who assist U.S. citizens every day
under challenging circumstances. I assure you, you will not
find a more dedicated team of public servants anywhere.
Since the first news of the novel coronavirus outbreak in
China, OCS has been at the center of an around-the-clock effort
to inform U.S. travelers of the risks related to COVID, and to
bring home those caught overseas.
The global consular teams' work during the COVID outbreak
is giving Congress and the American public an opportunity to
see the broad range of actions OCS and consular officers in the
field take every day to support U.S. citizens overseas.
Although the COVID pandemic is unprecedented, we are not
new to the business of repatriating citizens in need. We are
not new to the business of communicating accurate, actionable,
life-saving advice to citizens. Protecting health and safety of
U.S. citizens abroad and helping them get home when they are in
need has always been my office's core mission.
PDAS Brownlee described the extraordinary efforts the
Department's task force undertook to expand our capacity to
support our citizens overseas, and OCS is deeply grateful for
the way in which the entire Department mobilized during this
crisis. OCS staff comprised the core task force staffing, and I
pledge to you and the citizens we serve, that OCS continues to
monitor the provision of services to Americans worldwide, and
we will continue to support repatriation efforts when and where
needed.
OCS officers are in constant touch with their colleagues at
embassies and consulates overseas, and they provide policy and
logistical crisis management guidance around the clock. More
broadly, OCS maintains close contact with other State
Department offices, as well as the interagency partners that
comprise the COVID task force. We are fully prepared to flex as
needed to support any renewed demand for repatriations, and we
will call on the larger Bureau of Consular Affairs to bolster
us as needed.
OCS officers maintain the Consular Information Program that
is the foundation of our efforts to protect U.S. citizens. Our
products include travel advisories, country information pages,
and timely alerts issued directly by our overseas posts. These
products provide U.S. citizens with fact-based information
designed to enable Americans overseas to make well-informed
decisions regarding their safety.
Our travel advisories, in particular, have also become
invaluable to professionals in the travel, insurance and
private security sectors. The travel advisory system assigns
each country an advise level ranging from 1, exercise normal
precautions, to 4, do not travel, derived from metrics-based
rubrics that assess crime, terrorism, kidnapping, hostage-
taking, civil unrest, natural disaster, health, and other
risks.
The COVID pandemic poses unprecedented health and
logistical risks for travelers, and we are working closely with
experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
CDC, to ensure that our travel advisories take into account the
latest data in each country. In tandem with CDC, OCS issued an
unprecedented level 4, do not travel, global travel advisory in
March. With conditions improving in some countries, we are
following CDC's lead and returning to previous country-specific
travel advice levels.
As much as I hope we are never again confronted with the
crisis requiring us to repatriate more than 100,000 U.S.
citizens, we are ready to do so if needed. In fact, we are
already working on how we would do it better.
Rethinking and innovating in the face of challenges is
critically important, and we are currently engaged in a
lessons-learned effort to identify action items that will
enhance our responsiveness and effectiveness.
I second PDAS Brownlee's request to work with you to ensure
funding for OCS is not exclusively reliant on revenue sources
outside of the Department's control. The services we provide to
U.S. citizens are just too important.
Our office has the privilege of safeguarding the safety and
security of U.S. citizens overseas. I am proud to lead a team
of foreign affairs professionals that serve our country and
fellow citizens incredibly well.
I reiterate my thanks to the chairman and ranking member
for this opportunity to address you. I look forward to
answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. King follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Ms. King. We appreciate your
testimony very much.
And I will now recognize members for 5 minutes each, and
pursuant to House rules, all time yielded is for the purposes
of questioning our witnesses.
Because of the hybrid format of this meeting, I will
recognize members by committee seniority, alternating between
Democrats and Republicans. If you miss your turn, members,
please let our staff know, and we will circle back to you. If
you seek recognition, you must unmute your microphone and
address the chair verbally.
And I will start now by recognizing myself.
The Bureau of Consular Affairs is typically funded through
the fees it collects for performing consular services. Now
obviously, the pandemic has drastically reduced demand for
consular services. We understand, as you mentioned, that the
Department expects revenues to decline by $1.4, $1.5 billion in
Fiscal Year 2020 and Fiscal Year 2021, with a continued decline
expected in Fiscal Year 2022. This is an astonishing amount of
money, given that in recent years, revenue has been about $4
billion.
And so, as I mentioned, you described some of the fiscal
situation, particularly Mr. Brownlee, but let me ask you: What
actions is the Bureau taking to account for these dropping
revenues, and what would be the impact of these falling
revenues? In other words, what is the longer-term impact of
this?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you. Thank you very much for your
question, sir.
We are approaching this, as you correctly note, astonishing
decline in revenue down essentially two paths: One is we are
seeking to effect now, immediately, savings in our
expenditures, and we have identified some--pardon me. Let me
make sure I get the number correct here. We have identified
some $359 million in savings from the Fiscal Year 2020 budget.
Mr. Castro. Do you have a sense of where those savings are
coming from, a rough sense?
Mr. Brownlee. A very rough sense, sir, we have contracts,
for example--we have contracts overseas where we have what we
call greeters, assistants who move people through visa waiting
rooms. Obviously, at times of greatly reduced visa demand, we
do not need people moving through waiting rooms.
There are similar----
Mr. Castro. Okay.
Mr. Brownlee [continuing]. Sort of services. We are looking
at a number of other projects as well, both domestically and
overseas, where we can hold off on expending money, or just not
spend at all, but we are looking at a fairly significant
reduction in this year's spending.
We are also considering--we have used the money--thank you
very much to the Congress for the authorities given to us in
the CARES Act to go into prior unexpended balances that have
been carried forward. So, without getting into great detail,
our fees bring in funds from a number of different sources--
visa fees, passport fees, some surcharges.
We had the broadest authority to spend what we call the MRV
fee, the machine-readable visa fee. That was the one that was
carrying us. With the systemic decline in visa demand that was
taking place even before the COVID crisis hit, we were facing a
problem, and we have been requesting authority to spend, for
example, the passport security surcharge to expend those funds
to support our--DAS King's operations overseas.
Mr. Castro. Well, I have a--can I interject----
Mr. Brownlee. Please.
Mr. Castro [continuing]. Just 1 second? And I have one more
questions after this. I have got about 2 minutes left. But, on
this issue, let me ask you this: Are Americans going to have a
different experience utilizing your services because of this?
What is that going to look like? Is it going to take longer?
What do you anticipate?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you, sir, for the question.
With regard to our services overseas, it is our key
priority. We are not going to put Karin's operations out of
business because of this. We are going to make sure that those
operations continue unabated, consistent with what we can do
safely, bring in the number of people into a waiting room, that
sort of thing. So they may see some change in that respect, but
health and considerations may require us to restrict the number
of people in the waiting room.
With regard to domestic services, passport services, we
have reinitiated the provision of--the adjudication of
passports. Beginning--I think it was on June 11th--in early
June, we began--we brought in--we declared our entire staff to
be mission critical. That brought approximately 50 percent of
the staff back into the office to do adjudications, and we have
made significant, very significant progress in reducing the
backlog that had developed in March, April, May, and early
June.
So.
Mr. Castro. Yes. Well, thank you for that. And I have got
about 45 seconds left, 40 seconds left, but let me ask you,
some countries have started to not allow Americans to travel to
their countries. Can you all tell me how many nations are
currently not allowing Americans to travel to their countries?
Mr. Brownlee. No, sir. I cannot tell you that off the top
of my head, but I will get you that answer, sir.
Mr. Castro. Sure. Okay. Thank you.
I will turn it over to Ranking Member Zeldin.
Mr. Zeldin. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Congress informed the committee yesterday that, of the $588
million of emergency money provided to the Department in the
CARES Act, $462 million has been notified for use, but only
$104 million has been obligated. What are the plans for the
remaining $126 million that has not been notified?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you, Mr. Zeldin, for the question. I am
going to have to take that, sir--I am aware of what we are
doing in the Bureau of Consular Affairs. We are grateful for
the support given to the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the
CARES Act, but on the broader departmental question, we are
going to have to get back to you, sir. Thank you.
Mr. Zeldin. Go ahead, Ms. King.
Ms. King. Yes. I would just say that in terms of moneys to
be used for U.S. citizen repatriations, we are using all the
money we need for repatriation purposes.
Mr. Zeldin. Would either of you have any comments as to why
only $104 million has been obligated so far?
Ms. King. I would say, again, where we have needed to use
the funds specifically for repatriations, and for evacuations,
we have used that money, so to the degree we have not used more
of it, it is because we have not yet had the need to do so.
Mr. Zeldin. Great. Thank you.
State has said it is using their repatriation loans,
programs--program account to help U.S. citizens pay for costs
associated with commercial rescue flights operated by private
air carriers. How much funding has the State Department
obligated from their repatriation loans program account for
this purpose?
Ms. King. I am going to have to get back to you with the
specific number. I know that we have met our authorization, and
so, at this point, we are using K funds for repatriation
purposes, but I will have to get back to you with where we are
with the specific number today.
Mr. Zeldin. With respect to individuals who lack the means
to repay such loans, what actions, if any, does the State
Department take?
Ms. King. The State Department works with the Department of
Treasury, so when somebody is repatriated, there is a hold put
on their passport until they have repaid the loan, and we work
very closely with Treasury to get the loan repayment.
Mr. Zeldin. Any insights though to share if the individual
lacks the ability to repay the loan?
Ms. King. The passport will remain held until they are able
to repay the loan.
Mr. Zeldin. In January 2020, State announced the launch of
the Center for Analytics to improve data management and
analytic efforts to support diplomatic missions abroad. The
head of the Center, the first ever chief data officer, Janice
deGarmo, said she had developed a repatriation briefing book to
support the Repatriation Task Force. Would you be able to
discuss the way this technology aided your efforts to track and
analyze data repatriation requests and flight information?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you, Mr. Zeldin, for your question.
Yes. I found it very useful. As the head of the
Repatriations Task Force, that became required reading for me,
the repatriations briefing book. Initially, it was coming out
three times a day. As the efforts continued, the frequency
decreased, but it was extraordinarily useful in seeing where
trends were developing, what region of the world, for example,
the Western Hemisphere remained a key focus for us. But as time
went on, we saw, for example, there were more people trying to
get out of Europe. We were intrigued to find there were
relatively few people trying to come out of East Asia, Pacific
region. It was very, very helpful to us in deciding where to
devote resources as we move forward.
Mr. Zeldin. Well, I thank you both. I think that the last
answer kind of--might have answered my last question, but I
will ask anyway in case you have any other insight on it. What
work has the State Department's COVID-19 data analytics team
done to evaluate changing conditions around the world to help
ensure State's preparedness in responding to new, localized
outbreaks of COVID-19?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you, sir, for the question.
We are continuing to track conditions around the world,
mainly through our ACS sections coming back to the Office of
Overseas Citizens Services, to ascertain where people--U.S.
citizens are expressing some degree of interest in returning to
the United States.
It is important to recognize that ``some degree of
interest'' phrase in there. We have relatively few people these
days who are saying, I need to go now. We have people who are
saying, Well, if conditions change, if conditions worsen, what
have you, I would like to go. So we are closely tracking that
number, and the Center for Data Analytics is helping us do
that, and that allows us to determine whether we might need to
lay on additional flights to this place or that place.
Mr. Zeldin. Thank you, and I just want to say thank you to
both of you, Mr. Brownlee, Ms. King, to your teams. There were
a lot of challenges with regards to the pandemic, but your
accessibility and the efforts around the world certainly were
noticed, I believe, on both sides of the aisle here in
Congress, and by many of our constituents.
I yield back.
Mr. Castro. Absolutely. Thank you, Ranking Member.
We will go now to Mr. Malinowski, New Jersey.
Mr. Malinowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to you both for being here with us. And, just to
reiterate Mr. Zeldin's point, that the Department has been very
responsive, very present when we have needed help with a
particular constituent.
That said, we need help, and there are some concerns I have
about where we are right now in terms of providing services to
people who need them. Let me just give you a couple of
examples.
I have a constituent, an American citizen, who--whose wife
made a very difficult journey to Addis in Ethiopia in March for
a visa appointment. It was understandably canceled in March,
but it is a little bit harder for me to explain to that family
why, now, in July, we still cannot tell them when this American
citizen's wife might get an expedited appointment. She has
DHS--her paperwork, everything in order.
Another case, I have an American citizen child in my
district whose Indian father was here on an H-1B visa, happened
to go back to India in March because his father--his father had
passed away, went back for the funeral, and his appointment for
his H-1B renewal was canceled again, understandably, in March,
but a little bit less understandable, a little bit harder to
explain to that child why, in July, we still cannot tell him
when his father might be able to get that appointment.
So I guess my question is, why is it that, at this point,
especially with the resources we have given you, we cannot
conduct expedited interviews in these relatively few cases
where there is an American family that is broken up? Here we
are meeting by video conferencing here. You certainly have that
capacity technologically to conduct interviews. You have legal
authority to waive the personal appearance requirement in cases
where the national interest argues for it, or if there is an
unusual or exigent circumstance. When can we expect progress in
this area, to either of you?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you, Mr. Malinowski, for your
questions.
I agree, the separation of family is heartrending. I am
pleased to say that--I think it was last Wednesday, July 15th--
we sent instructions to the field on how to resume routine visa
operations. This will be largely dependent upon the condition
of the Diplomacy Strong--you understand that when I say--that
the phase of Diplomacy Strong in which a particular post is.
For those posts that are in the later phases, 2 and 3, they
will be subject to essentially chief of mission, emergency
action committee can decide if that is where they are. The post
may undertake routine visa services consistent with good health
practices, safety, et cetera.
The posts that are in phases 0 and 1 may come into the
Department to request permission to conduct certain sorts of
visa applications--visa adjudications. So, for example, we are
seeing requests coming in from some posts to begin doing
student visa applications. So this is getting underway now.
One of the difficulties we are finding is this is not a
static situation. I was briefing a DCM headed to a European
post just yesterday. As our conversation began, we were
discussing how his soon-to-be post was at phase 2. One of his
staffers from the EUR Bureau broke in partway through the
conversation and said, I am sorry. The post just asked to go
back to phase 1.
Mr. Malinowski. But what about waiving the in-person
requirement? You have done that apparently, I think, in some--
--
Mr. Brownlee. Yes, sir. We have done this with regard to
certain workers--for example, the agricultural workers coming--
--
Mr. Malinowski. Right.
Mr. Brownlee [continuing]. Out of Mexico, the H-2As.
Mr. Malinowski. So why not students and scholars? Why not
other categories?
Mr. Brownlee. I would be happy to take the question under
advisement, sir, with regard to--specifically with regard to
those constituents. We are looking at everything we can do to
get visa operations moving as quickly as possible.
Mr. Malinowski. I mean, let me just close with a final
comment that I find almost painful to make, but we all, first
and foremost, want to protect the safety of U.S. Government
employees. If I were a foreign service family with kids,
wanting to enroll them in school right now, I can think of a
large number of countries where I would feel safer than United
States of America. If we were going to apply that phasing
system to ourselves, we would not actually rank very highly,
and I wonder whether we can do more to take that into account,
as hard as it is to acknowledge how poorly we are doing in
response to this crisis domestically in making these sorts of
determinations.
And, with that, I yield back. Thank you very much.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Mr. Malinowski.
All right. I am going to ask a few questions, because, as
you can imagine, the bells rang for votes, and folks are
scrambling to go vote. And then we have one or two people who
are interested in asking some questions. Hopefully that will
give them a chance to come back. If not, we will probably
recess for about 10 or 15 minutes and give them a chance to
come back at that point.
So I want to ask you, because we have been and still are
affected by this pandemic, what safety protocols you are now
taking in terms of, when you deliver the services--when
Americans take advantage of the services that you offer, what
protocols have been put in place, that offices are putting up
to ensure the safety of the officers, for example?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the question.
We are using protocols very similar to those you are using
here, sir. We are keeping people at a safe--we remove one from
another. We are only letting so many people into, for example,
a visa waiting room.
We have not yet begun expedited passport service, where we
have, you know, people being exposed at the physical counter,
yet.
We are doing everything we can to begin moving our
processes as quickly as possible, consistent with good conduct
and safety.
Mr. Castro. And is there a mechanism for officers to
communicate their concerns and to work through scheduling
options that give them more confidence in performing their
work?
Mr. Brownlee. Yes, sir, there is. I participate in, I think
they are, thrice-weekly meetings with the Deputy Under
Secretary for Management, where we discuss what it will take to
reopen various aspects of the State Department domestically.
And so, going back to Mr. Malinowski's observation, we have
the domestic Diplomacy Strong undertaking, and we are looking
at individual regions around the country--the national capital
region. We have passport operations all over the country. As
the conditions change in those areas, we decide whether we may
more or less reopen there.
Mr. Castro. Okay.
And given the backlog of visa applications that built up
while embassies and consulates were closed, how will the State
Department prioritize visa applications once offices are
reopened?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you, sir.
What we are doing--as I said, we sent instructions to the
field just 6 days ago now telling them, as I said earlier to
Mr. Malinowski, how they may go about reopening, depending on
which phase of Diplomacy Strong they are now.
For those posts, for example in New Zealand, that is fairly
wide open, they may move----
Mr. Castro. Let me interrupt for just a second, because we
lost our quorum because people have gone to vote. So we are
going to recess here for just a bit.
[Recess.]
[11:05 a.m.]
Mr. Castro. The committee will come back to order.
And I know that we were in the middle of the answer to one
of my questions, but if you had anything further to add as an
answer to that question.
And when you are done, I will turn it over to--let me see--
David--actually, Ted and then David. I see David.
So any final words on that answer? Or were you----
Mr. Brownlee. I think I was substantially done. Thank you,
sir.
Mr. Castro. Okay.
Mr. Cicilline.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Chairman Castro.
And thank you to our witnesses for being here.
During the peak, the first, kind of, surge of the
coronavirus, back in April, there were many Governors that were
pleading for more healthcare workers. And, at the same time,
The New York Times was reporting that foreign health workers
had been lining up to take jobs in American hospitals but had
been prevented from doing so.
And they described the roadblocks that included their
inability to get visas, not being allowed to travel to the
United States even if they had a visa. And, in other cases,
foreign health workers inside the country were not allowed to
extend their visas.
So my first question is, what is Consular Affairs doing to
ensure that foreign health workers who are able and willing to
help during this health emergency are able to get visas and
travel to the United States or remain here in the United
States?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you very much for your question, sir. I
can address what we are doing with regard to those foreign
health workers who are overseas, seeking visas to travel to the
United States. With regard to those who are in the United
States already, seeking to extend their stay, I would have to
refer you to the Department of Homeland Security, specifically
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is responsible
for the extension of a period of stay in the United States.
With regard to those who are overseas, right from the
beginning, we have prioritized giving visa appointments, giving
visa interviews to certain classes of people, including health
workers coming to help us address the COVID-19 panic.
There may have been some confusion in the initial weeks,
but, since then, the Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs
has made it clear, and has, in fact, acted upon that clarity,
that we need to make it possible for these health workers to
come here, assuming they have the necessary work
authorizations.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
And on July 6 ICE announced that students taking only
online classes would not be eligible for student visas, and
then on July 14 they rescinded this policy.
My question is, were any applicants denied student visas
between July 6 and the 14th on the basis of ICE's announcement?
And if so, will those applicants be given and notified of an
opportunity to reapply?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you very much for your question, sir. I
do not know the answer specifically. I will have to get back to
you on that one.
Mr. Cicilline. Okay. I would appreciate that.
Ms. King, as you know, countries around the world,
including some of our most important allies, are beginning to
allow people to travel to their countries again, and, with very
few exceptions, the United States has remained on the list of
countries who are not welcome.
A more cynical person might say that, while President Trump
has thankfully failed to build his wall along our border with
Mexico, his horrendous response to the coronavirus has erected
a different kind of wall, one that prevents Americans from
leaving our own country.
And what I would like to know is what role the State
Department is playing with our allies and other governments
around the world to address the concerns so that Americans can
travel again. And, particularly, have these governments
provided specific metrics to the United States that will have
to be met in order for Americans to be allowed to travel to
their countries?
Ms. King. Thank you for the question.
I know that many countries, especially in Europe, are
looking epidemiologically at whether or not it is prudent for
them to allow U.S. citizens in at this time. And I know that we
are having very close conversations with governments throughout
the world to see whether we can reach agreement on the comfort
levels that they might have with allowing U.S. citizens in.
I will tell you what my office is doing. We are working on
our travel advisory to bring it down from the global Level 4,
which right now advises U.S. citizens against traveling
anywhere in the world. We are working very closely with CDC,
which is also looking at risk levels overseas for U.S.
citizens, so that we can provide accurate advice. And I am
hoping that, in the near future, we will be at a point where
there will be some countries where we can again advise U.S.
citizens that, although it may not be completely safe to
travel, we will no longer be saying do not travel.
Mr. Cicilline. Yes, no, I appreciate that. My question
really relates to countries that are prohibiting U.S. citizens
from traveling to those countries, not policy of the United
States, policies of our allies. And to the extent that there
are metrics that they are furnishing the United States that
must be met before U.S. travel will be permitted, it would be
useful to know what those metrics are. I think it would help
guide our response here in the United States.
And so, if we have specific metrics from allies or other
countries saying, you must meet these metrics before we will
allow Americans to travel here, it would be very useful for
Congress to know that and to see those metrics. And I would ask
you to make them available to us, if they exist.
And, with that, I yield back.
Ms. King. Yes. Our regional bureaus are working very
closely with governments, again, specifically the governments
in European countries, to see what their basis is for deciding
whether or not U.S. citizens may enter.
And I know in Europe, in the Schengen countries
particularly, they are looking at epidemiological markers very
similar to what CDC is looking at in determining whether
foreigners should be allowed in to the United States. So, if
there is a desire for more details on what those markers are, I
am happy to talk to our regional bureau colleagues about the
details.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you very much.
Mr. Castro. Well, thank you.
And I do think that is an important question Mr. Cicilline
asked, which is, you know, we know now that there is a growing
list of countries that have prohibited Americans from traveling
there. And people have family members in these countries that
they would like to visit at some point, obviously. So it will
be important for us to understand what it is going to take to
allow Americans to get back to those places. So we will
followup with you all on that.
With that, I will go to Mr. Lieu of California.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to the witnesses for your dedicated public
service. We all really appreciate that.
Two areas of inquiry. The first, I want to start out by
thanking Secretary Brownlee for your great work with
repatriation. I know that we had about 20-some constituents
that needed to be repatriated. We worked with your task force,
and they were all repatriated. And so thank you for that.
My question related to that issue is--and I am sorry if
this has been asked before. I was told that some airlines, and
perhaps U.S. airlines as well, were not particularly helpful in
this effort. So I wanted to know if that was true. And if it
was, in what ways can we make sure that they are more helpful
next time?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you very much, Mr. Lieu. And thank you
for your kind words about the efforts of the task force. It was
a remarkable effort, bringing together people from across the
State Department, across the U.S. interagency, and, frankly,
across the globe. So it is remarkable to have been involved in
such an undertaking.
With regard to the airlines, we found that, as the
confusion of the border closings took place, our Economic
Bureau undertook conversations with U.S. legacy carriers and
others to see whether they would be available to conduct
flights into certain areas. In some cases, they were unable or
unwilling to go into areas; in other cases, they were.
So, for example, the legacy carrier--or the follow-on to
the legacy carrier Eastern Airlines, a small U.S. company,
proved to be very, very helpful in going into areas in the
Caribbean, Central America, and northern South America.
When we sought to bring people out of, for example, India,
the question became more complex. And I do not think I would
characterize the U.S. airlines as being uncooperative. It
simply was not commercially viable for them to fly from the
United States to India to pick up a load and then bring it back
again. And this got them into--the problems arose from such
things as crew rest regulations, the need to fly two crews
from, say, San Francisco to New Delhi.
So, in the end, there, we ended up going with Air India,
which did not have those same crew rest issues. They could
initiate their travel in India, pick up a planeload of people,
bring them to the United States.
So there was much confusion, but I do not think that I
would characterize the airlines as uncooperative.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Lieu. That is helpful to know. I appreciate that.
So the second subject I want to talk about is, what do we
call this virus?
So let me start by saying that what China did at the
beginning in suppressing information about this virus is not
defensible, and we should rightly criticize China for doing
that.
At the same time, this virus already has an official name,
``COVID-19.'' It has an unofficial name, ``coronavirus.'' And
the CDC has said that we should not attach ethnic identifiers
to this virus because it could lead to discrimination. And we
already see, across America, that there have been approximately
1,900 hate crime incidents against Asian Americans, including
an Asian American family in Texas that was stabbed because the
perpetrator thought they were spreading this virus.
And I understand you cannot control what the President of
the United States says, but when the President or other
administration officials use terms like ``Chinese virus'' or
``kung flu,'' it does fuel hatred against Asian Americans, and
it leads to hate crimes against Asian Americans.
So I just want all of you to understand that words do
matter. And when you stick ethnic identifiers in front of a
virus that affects everyone, it could lead to very harmful
effects against Americans who happen to be of Asian descent.
And my question to you is, is there any official State
Department policy on what you call this virus?
And before you answer, I also want to say that, you know,
we do not call the swine flu the ``North American virus,'' even
though it started in North America. The Spanish flu did not
start in Spain; it likely started in Kansas. So there is no
reason to call this the ``Chinese virus.'' If you want to say
the virus came from China, I think that is fine. That is very
different than how some other people use terms that could
inflame people against Asian Americans.
If you could answer my question about whether there is a
policy on what you call this virus, that would be great.
Mr. Brownlee. Within the Bureau of Consular Affairs, sir,
we refer to the carrier of the virus as the ``novel
coronavirus.'' The disease that novel coronavirus causes is
called ``COVID-19.'' There is a pandemic generated by the
widespread infection by COVID-19.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I urge all
Federal agencies to do what you all do.
And I hope the President of the United States understands
he is President for not just some Americans but all Americans
and that he understands his words can cause hatred toward a
certain subset. And I wish he would just call this virus by its
official name.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Mr. Lieu.
Mr. Lieu makes an important point as well, that the
President's language has been incendiary in how he has
described this virus. And attacks against Asian Americans, as
you all probably have seen, have skyrocketed during this
pandemic, in no short measure because of how the President has
described this virus, and others as well.
With that, I am going to go over to Debbie Dingell, but,
first, I need to read just a few lines.
I ask unanimous consent for Representative Debbie Dingell
of Michigan to participate in this hearing and ask questions
after all subcommittee and committee members have done so.
Hearing no objection, I will go to Debbie Dingell of
Michigan.
Mrs. Dingell. Thank you, Chairman Castro, and to Ranking
Member Zeldin, for convening this important hearing to discuss
the COVID pandemic and its impact on the State Department's
consular programs.
As today's witnesses have outlined, the COVID-19 pandemic
has resulted in the evacuation of 100,000 Americans on over
1,000 flights from 136 countries and territories. And, quite
frankly, a number of them have been from my district.
However, these evacuations can come at a substantial cost
for Americans abroad, as they are required to pay the
equivalent of a ticket on a commercial flight from the area in
which they are evacuated. Additionally, the State Department
will put a hold on the individual's passport until the amount
is repaid.
This resulting cost is often very surprising to
individuals, the amount of it, and burdensome. And several of
my constituents discovered when being evacuated from the
Caribbean in 2017--so this is before COVID--they had to pay
hundreds and thousands of dollars in repatriation loans each.
That is why Congressman Jim McGovern and I have introduced
the Leave No Americans Behind Act, which would end the State
Department's practice of charging these fees.
Mr. Brownlee, I would like to ask you some questions.
Can you provide details on the total cost of the
repatriation efforts? Specifically, how much did the entire
campaign cost the State Department? What were the costs of the
flights?
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you, Ms. Dingell, for your questions.
I have here in front of me information that indicates that,
in repatriating the over 110,000 people, the Department spent
over $195 million--specifically, over $196 million. I have a
breakdown beyond that if you are interested, but it is a total
of $196 million.
How we arrived at the individual costs of a particular
flight, that is governed by law and regulation. We are required
by law to take a promissory note from anybody whom we put onto
one of these K Fund charter flights. The amount of that
promissory note is fixed by the Bureau of Administration within
the State Department, and essentially what it comes down to is
what one would have paid for a ticket if one had showed up at
the airport in, say, Santo Domingo looking for a flight to the
United States the day before the crisis hit. So the immediate
pre-crisis price.
As the effort to repatriate people continued, we expanded
our lift capacity by bringing in commercial carriers as well.
In some cases, they were able to do this for less than what we
would have charged. In other cases, they found they could only
make money by charging more than we would have charged for a
corresponding flight.
In any case, we left nobody behind for reasons of money.
Either people could come back using the promissory note on one
of the K Fund charter flights or the American Citizens Services
section in the country in question could issue the person a
repatriation loan.
And we issued a very significant number of repatriation
loans, or have issued a very significant number of repatriation
loans during this crisis. As of--I am sorry, I do not have the
exact date, but we hit our congressionally mandated cap on the
repatriation loan program of about $5.6 million about a month
or two ago. And, since then, we have issued, I think, some $2
million, approximately, in repatriation loans coming out of the
K Fund.
I hope this answers your questions, ma'am.
Mrs. Dingell. I have a lot more questions. I appreciate the
information. And I am going to have to be fast because I am
down to 45 seconds.
But you know that a number of individuals are unemployed.
They are now having very real financial situations. How do we
help them in repaying these notes?
And many other countries who assisted in the repatriation
of their citizens did not charge their citizens or their family
members to return home. So, in the State Department's
assessment of actions you have taken during this time, are you
looking at charging citizens in an emergency, something under
consideration to change how you help people in these dire
times?
Mr. Castro. And you all can give a full answer on that. We
are waiting for maybe one more member that has questions, so go
ahead.
And, Debbie, if you have another question, go ahead too.
Mrs. Dingell. Well, let's get the answer to that one.
Ms. King. The requirement to obtain reimbursement from U.S.
citizens pursuant to issuing a repatriation loan is a matter of
statute. So the U.S. Department of State does not have a choice
in that matter.
Again, our goal in Consular Affairs is to make sure people
get out of harm's way absolutely as quickly as possible, and
that, in some cases, does require the repatriation loan
program. But we are not in a position to forgive those loans,
given the statute.
Mrs. Dingell. So that is why we need the Leave No Americans
Behind law that Jim and I have introduced.
So individuals who boarded the State Department charter
flights had to sign promissory notes promising to pay the State
Department back, and some of them are now finding they do not
have their passports. Not that anybody really should be
traveling right now, but if they need it for other reasons and
they are hitting credit issues, et cetera.
How much in dollar value right now do you think is out
there in promissory notes?
Mr. Brownlee. Ma'am, thank you for the question.
We understand that some $7.5 million to $8 million in
repatriation loans are outstanding. In terms of promissory
notes, we are going to have to get you that information, ma'am.
Mrs. Dingell. Thank you.
And I do thank you all. I have had a lot of desperate
people, and you have multiple times more that in the last few
months. These are tough jobs, and we want to make sure our
Americans are safe and brought home safely. And we probably do
not say thank you enough to people who are trying to help our
fellow Americans.
I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Castro. All right. Thank you, Representative Dingell.
And we have one more member who is going to be coming. Of
course, again, remember, people are voting and coming back and
forth, and so it will take about 5 minutes.
Ted, do you have any other questions you wanted to ask?
I will just check with the members that are here. If not,
we can recess for 5 minutes, but just want to make sure there
are not any other questions that folks wanted to ask.
Mr. Lieu. I am good, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Castro. Okay.
All right. We will recess for about 5 minutes. I promise in
about 20 minutes you will be out of here, all right?
The committee is in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Castro. All right. The committee will come to order,
and now recognize Ms. Omar.
Ms. Omar. Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you so much for being here with us, Mr. Brownlee.
My office heard from several people who had approved visas
and were unable to travel due to the COVID pandemic. We also
heard from people who were in the middle of an approval
process, and those--whose time limits expired during the
pandemic.
It does not seem fair to me that people might lose their
visas or have to pay additional fees through no fault of their
own. Will the State Department automatically extend people's
deadlines or visas to accommodate them when those things
expired through no fault of their own----
Mr. Brownlee. Ms. Omar----
Ms. Omar [continuing]. And can you guarantee that those--
they will not be able to pay additional fees for this, for
their cases?
Mr. Brownlee. Ms. Omar, thanks very much for that question.
This is an important issue. We understand that--we were
required back in March to close down visa operations. I am very
pleased to say that beginning 6 days ago, we sent instructions
to the field on how they could begin--the individual posts
around the world could begin resuming visa--routine visa
operations.
We recognize that a great many people had paid for visa
appointments, and those visa appointments were canceled. We
recognize that a great many people had done their, for example,
panel physician examinations. Those--the results of those
examinations will have expired.
We are formulating guidance to the field right now on how
to deal with these various issues. We are very cognizant of the
fairness issue, that people paid in good faith for certain
services, and did not receive them.
We also recognize that there were time limitations on
various other documents that were not always within the control
of the State Department. So, for example, some would be
petitions that had been approved by U.S. Citizenship &
Immigration Services. We are looking at this closely right now,
and I hope will be able to give you a more fulsome answer in
the near future.
Ms. Omar. Wonderful. We will followup. Thank you so much.
Mr. Brownlee. Thank you.
Ms. Omar. I know that how anxiety-inducing it is for people
who have waited for a long time to have gotten the opportunity
and lose it, so thank you.
Ms. King, I just wanted to talk a little bit about
repatriation. First of all, we all recognize how incredibly
difficult and unprecedented this repatriation effort was, and I
am amazed by the hard work and passion of the embassy staff and
career officials. I know it was not easy, and I know there will
be a lot of lessons learned to prepare us for a truly global
event like this one in the future.
How would you characterize the differences between the
different countries in terms of our communication with those
countries during this effort, and are there countries where we
did not have adequate notice of their own plans to close
airports and restrict flights?
Ms. King. Thank you very much. Thank you for your kind
words for my team, first of all, very much appreciated.
In terms of the repatriations, I think one of the main
problems that we did encounter was lack of advanced notice from
a number of countries. I certainly feel that if we were to do
something differently in the future, we would have all of our
embassies reach out immediately to the host governments to find
out what their intentions were in terms of closing borders.
We were very much focused on where the epidemic was
threatening U.S. citizen lives overseas, which was obviously
China in the beginning, and then moving into Europe. Obviously,
where we saw a lot of issues with Americans unable to come home
was in Latin America, where a number of countries, for example,
Peru, did shut down the border with very little notice, and
then we were in a position of having to request exceptions to
bring in our rescue flights and our K fund flights.
We saw a similar phenomenon in Morocco there. We were very
successfully able to get them to delay closure of their airport
while we were able to get in rescue flights. So I do not think
that there was any one specific country. I think, throughout
the world, we saw this phenomenon.
Ms. Omar. I think one of the--one of my concerns involved
cases in Venezuela. And, in this case, it looked like we were
letting politics get in the way of doing our duty to protect
U.S. citizens, and I know oftentimes, you know, we have to
prioritize the safety of our citizens and our ability to
reunite them with their families here at home. So I hope, in
the future, as we learn from this, that we work to try to
create that priority and substitute our ideology and politics
for the reality of what it means to have our citizens back
home.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Ms. Omar, and that concludes the
member questioning.
Again, I want to thank our witnesses from the State
Department for your testimony. And, Ms. King, I think you made
an important point at the end here in your last answer where
you talked about some things that we might have done
differently or approached differently next time.
I think all of us do not hope for anything like this
pandemic, or anything close to it in the near future or really
ever. However, it is important that, at some point, we take
stock of lessons learned, and what we could do better, what we
should do differently next time, and I hope that the State
Department will work internally to put that kind of document
together, but then, at the right time, also share it with
Congress.
With that, I want to say thank you, and this meeting is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:48a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
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INFORMATION SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
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