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R202318ZMAR02
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO ALL DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR POSTS
SPECIAL EMBASSY PROGRAM
AMEMBASSY BELGRADE
AMEMBASSY DUSHANBE
AMEMBASSY KABUL

UNCLAS STATE 053920 „ ^^

E.G. 12958: N/A

TAGS: CVIS, CMGT &
SUBJECT: CENTRALIZATION AND CONSOLIDATION OF VISA
PROCESSES: THE ROLE OF NVC AND KCC AND VO

REF: STATE 36300

1. Summary: The two stateside visa processing centers in

New Hampshire (NVC) and Kentucky (KCC) have proven the
benefits of a model employing contractor resources to
perform routine clerical support of visa functions. VO is
anxious to expand those centers to handle petition-based
NIV cases, basic fraud prevention screening, document
archiving and imaging and other projects. Our experience
in utilizing contractors to handle public inquiries and INA
Section 212(e) waivers has been successful and we are
engaged in efforts to expand use of contractors in other
areas in VO. End summary.

The Vision

2. NVC was created with the vision of centralizing as much

as possible the routine clerical aspects of immigrant visa
processing so that consular sections overseas could
concentrate their resources on actual adjudication. Put in
other terms, the goal is to identify those portions of the
visa process which are inherently governmental in nature
and provide support through a US-based contract work force
for everything else. This approach was designed to reap the
efficiencies of processing in a factory-like center,
standardize routine processes, improve internal controls
and help with the work of building a domestic constituency
for the work of consular affairs. In the years since its

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inception, NVC has gone from being an exclusively mail and
file processing center to an operation that provides
sophisticated value-added visa services. The addition of
the Kentucky Consular Center in October 2000 provided CA
with significant flexibility to continue the expansion of
contractor support for visa processes.

3. Most consular officers are familiar with the basic case

preparation activities of NVC and, for DV cases, KCC. The
purpose of this message is to highlight some of the newer
activities at the centers, outline the division of labor,
and share some of our plans for the future.

Defining Limits: What We Can and Cannot Do

4. As noted above, certain consular tasks are inherently

governmental in nature and not appropriate for a contract
workforce. In addition, the visa process and the authority
of the Department of State in that process is essentially a
matter of the exercise of consular authority by consular
officers posted abroad. These distinctions are important
due to questions of jurisdiction and consular non-
reviewability. For these reasons, NVC and KCC cannot take
any actions which are adjudicatory in nature, including any
sort of valuative judgments on the merits of a case. For
example, in the AOS review, NVC can point out that a
required document is missing or that a document has not
been properly completed, but cannot note in forwarding the
case to post that the applicant appears ineligible under
212(a)(4). Procedures at the processing centers have been
carefully structured to avoid the appearance of
inappropriate decision-making while maximizing the benefits
of these operations as factories of contract visa clerks.

AOS Review

5. The Affidavit of Support review process at NVC has now

been underway for three years and will be expanded to the
remainder of posts worldwide by October 1,2002 (State
36300 dated February 26,2002). AOS review is in some ways
a prototype for the sorts of services possible at NVC and
KCC. Faced with a burdensome documentary requirement,
complicated by the fact that posts overseas had to ask

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applicants to relay information and documents to
petitioners in the US, CA took the two-pronged approach of
working with INS and Congress to try to simplify the 1-864
while designing a program to allow contractors at NVC to
handle the communication and document review work. The
dialogue on simplification continues, but in the meantime,
the review program is up and running well.

Fee collection

6. In conjunction with the AOS review, NVC has begun

collecting the immigrant visa application fee through a
bank lock-box operation. Changes are now being made to the
billing and accounting procedures to help streamline that
process and reduce some of the confusion that posts may
have when trying to confirm payment. The program has been
successful, however, in reducing the cashiering and
internal controls burden on posts and providing the USG
with payment up front for services provided. The fee
collection process will become even more worthwhile when
the new tariff schedule, which eliminates the IV issuance
fee in favor of a single application fee, goes into effect.

Appointment scheduling

7. DV posts are aware that KCC schedules appointments for

all DV cases. In addition, NVC reviews the civil documents
and schedules appointments for a number of posts, including
Montreal, Tirana and all posts in continental Africa. In a
further refinement, we are now requiring all Africa
applicants to submit original documents in response to the
"Instruction Package." These documents are checked
against Appendix C to ensure that they reflect those post
has indicated should be submitted and are then photocopied
and stamped "Original Seen and Returned." After the
appointment is scheduled, the case file is sent to post
with both originals and copies, so that all consular
officers need do at post is review the originals and return
them to the applicants. This requirement for originals is
being followed on a trial basis in the hope that it will
reduce the number of 22 Kg) refusals caused by applicants
failing to bring original documents to interview. A number
of posts have asked to be added to the NVC appointment

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process, and VO is considering further expansion of the
program.

Termination

8. NVC will continue to shoulder the clerical steps of the

termination process for non-responding immigrant visa cases
by sending the Packet 4(a) and Termination Letter 1. When
there is no answer to either of those letters, NVC then
contacts post about cases that appear to meet the criteria
for final termination. After the consular officer at post
makes a determination, he or she provides NVC with the
authoriation to physically destroy the petitions.

Petition-based Nonimmigrant Visas

9. V and K3 visa processing will soon be moved to KCC. In

the coming months KCC will begin serving as the link
between INS and posts for all NIV petitions, including
fiancee petitions. We plan to begin with fiancee
petitions. KCC will receive both the paper file and an
electronic file from INS, much as NVC now does with IV
petitions. After completing an NCIC namecheck KCC will
forward to posts both the electronic file and a scanned
copy of the petition via e-mail. As soon as possible, we
intend to have INS forward all NIV petitions to KCC.
Stated simply, we intend to provide INS with two addresses:
NVC for all IV-related work and KCC for all NIV-related
material. By simplifying the process of getting petitions
from INS to the Department of State (KCC in this case) and
by imaging and e-maiting the petitions overseas, we expect
to greatly reduce the amount of time currently required for
petitions to reach post. KCCs role in the NIV process is
still a work in progress. Many posts process most of their
petition-based NIVs on the basis of approval notices
without ever seeing the actual petition. We intend to
structure a process over time that involves KCC in data
entry and scanning of documents as appropriate to ensure
that consular officers get complete, secure information as
quickly as possible.

Visa Revalidations

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10. CA/VO/P/D annually processes over 60,000 applications

for revalidations of visas for accredited diplomats and
holders of certain types of work visas. At present, while
fee collection and initial data entry is performed by a
lock box operation, all other aspects of visa processing is
handled by career employees, interns or TOY assistance. We
intend to contract out most visa processing work, to
include downloading of RDS data, document checking and
assembly, visa printing and quality control, and return of
visa'ed passports, to contractors who will be integrated in
P/D. Visa adjudication will continue to be reserved to
career Civil Service and Foreign Service officers. We
believe this arrangement will allow us to process
revalidations, which have increased over 100 percent in the
past five years, more efficiently.

Fraud prevention screening

11. One aspect of this evolving role is fraud prevention

screening, which will begin first at NVC within the next
few months and then at KCC. Bearing in mind the
limitations on contractor activities, we are planning to
form small Fraud Program Units at both sites which will
used automated search tools to check petitioner information
in employment-based immigrant and nonimmigrant visa cases.
Initially, these units will randomly sample a small number
of cases and apply validation study-type strategies to
review the caseload. As we gain experience and document
trends, we intend to employ decision support software tools
to help screen and identify cases for further review.
Posts should not expect to see one hundred percent reviews.
Neither can the contractors return cases to INS or provide
full write-ups suitable for final action by post. Rather,
the processing centers will attempt to verify address,
phone and business information and provide objective facts
to post in a format that can be used for further
investigation or decision-making. Posts will not be able
to refer cases back to NVC or KCC for investigation, but we
expect the information provided will be of significant
benefit to adjudicating consular officers.

Student visas and the 1-20

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12. The debate on reform of the student visa and 1-20

processes continues to rage, so there are no final
decisions to report at this point. If, as seems likely, a
more involved 1-20 verification process with greater State
Department participation is the outcome, we plan to use KCC
to support the field.

Document archiving and management

13. In the aftermath of September 11, the Category I

refusal files from a number of posts were shipped to KCC,
where they are being stored and scanned on demand as needed
for law enforcement or visa processing purposes. In
addition, a number of posts have begun shipping OF-156 NIV
applications to KCC for storage due to longer retention
requirements already in place and likely to become law in
the near future. KCCs role as a document management
center is in its early days, but we expect this to become a
permanent role as we deal with issues of long term storage,
imaging and retrieval of visa records.

Backup for CLASS

14. KCC will also be the site of a contingency processing

center for CLASS. We expect to establish a redundant
CLASS mainframe at KCC by the end of 2002.

Adoption processing

15. The Department is working with INS toward having all

1-600 and I-600A petitions forwarded to NVC. NVC will
perform data entry and send the petitions to post.
Currently, only an unknown percentage of approved orphan
petitions pass through the NVC for this processing, while
the remainder are sent directly from district offices to
post or through cable or fax. By designating NVC as a
central point for orphan petitions, it will be easier to
retrieve records of approvals, particularly as prospective
adopting parents often plan to adopt in one country, but
then find an orphan they wish to adopt in another country
instead. Orphan petitions receive expedited handling at

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NVC, due to their unique and sensitive nature. They bypass
the IV fee collection and Affidavit of Support review. The
visa application and issuance fees for these cases will
continue to be collected at post.

And Into the Future

16. We are working hard to develop facilities and systems

architecture at both NVC and KCC that will allow us to
shift work seamlessly between the two sites as workload and
changing requirements necessitate. Our dialogue with INS
and other federal agencies on datashare, although largely
focussed on the border security benefits of using consular
data at POE, also stresses CAs interest in two-way
information flows. The processing centers are poised to
take full advantage of petition and other information
received electronically.

17. The Public Inquiries Division of VO has for the past 1

1/2 years employed contractors working side by side with
Civil Service employees to handle the full range of public
inquiries. We are currently engaged in efforts to contract
out all routine telephone, fax, email and traditional
written public inquiries to a call center, which will refer
more complex matters to VO, NVC or KCC for resolution. (The
call center will handle not only visa and AOS inquiries,
but those related to overseas American services, passport
issuances and vital records.) In addition to meeting a
public information need and saving some work for posts, the
call center will enable more effective use of NVC, KCC and
VO, and for all of CA, by providing a single point of
public contact.

18. We also expect to augment staffing throughout VO by

integrating contractors into our existing workforce to
perform both substantive and clerical work.

What Does it Mean for Consular Operations?

19. The model of centralized contractor support of routine

clerical work is a success and we plan to continue looking
for ways to make this model work more effectively in the
visa process. Proceeding down this path has some

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implications that posts are already beginning to deal with.
First, of course, increased centralization will necessarily
lead to greater standardization. Some of this will be
automatic, a consequence of having a single office handle
the work. Other efforts at standardization will be more
deliberate, as we eliminate some post-specific information
sheets and procedures in order to make operations more
efficient.

20. Greater centralization will also mean that consular

officers will increasingly be dealing with aspects of cases
that have already been in some way reviewed by the
Department of State. Obviously, the goal of contractor
processing is to provide the consular officer with as
complete a file as possible for eventual adjudication, but
officers will need to take into account the fact that the
USG has already had a bite at the apple on these cases. We
need to ensure that our processes remain transparent and
fair.

21. As should be clear, although the vision is clear, the

details of future NVC and KCC operations are not set in
concrete. Suggestions and comments from the field are
always welcome, because ultimately, its your operations
that we are supporting.

22. MINIMIZE CONSIDERED.

POWELL

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