Hello – Is Any One Home or is the US Embassy in Bern on four months holiday?
I was intrigued by the following Q and A in the International Herald Tribune’s “International Traveler: Readers Inquiries” column on Friday, June 10:
Q. I am American, my wife is Brazilian and we plan to visit the United States later this year. My wife needs a visa to travel with me, but the U.S. Embassy in Bern has told me that I cannot get an appointment to arrange this before the end of September. Is there a way of speeding things up? - William Keyser, Geneva.
A. It would probably make life a lot easier if your wife got an American passport. Try another U.S. embassy, in Paris or London, for example. A good business travel agent, like American Express or Carlson Wagonlit should be able to expedite a visa for a fee. – Roger Collis, Section Editor (contact info: rcollis@iht.com)
Wait a minute. What is wrong with the picture?
The Question
Keyser’s plea for help to the IHT was published in early June. If I’ve got it right, the Keysers are not planning to travel to the U.S. until later this year but the U.S. Embassy Consular Section in Bern can’t arrange an appointment for Mrs. Keyser, a Brazilian and spouse of an American citizen, until late September.
If so, as an American taxpayer, I’d like to know why. Such delays without a good reason should be inexcusable.
When my husband was a consular officer at that very same embassy in the early 1970s – and the visa waiver program that makes it far easier for Swiss tourists and business people to travel visa-less to the U.S. and hence cuts down the workload for U.S. consular officers and Swiss consular staff was not even a twinkle in the State Department’s eye - an appointment for someone like Mr. Keyser’s wife surely wouldn’t need to have been scheduled more than four months in advance.
So what’s the difference now? Understaffing? Overwork? Ineptitude?
I hope someone in the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs or the U.S. Ambassador’s Office in Bern also read the same IHT’s Travelers Section and has asked the Consular Section in Bern to rethink not only its reply to the Keysers but also its apparently lackadaisical-visa issuance procedures. Is the staff perhaps going on four month summer holiday? Or will it take that long to move the visa machines and consular seals from the old building on Jubilaeumstrasse into the city’s business district – a short tram ride – away.
Ambassador Pamela Willeford is a political appointee. No surprises there – the U.S. normally sends politicals to cushy European posts. In this case, Willeford’s a Texan and friend of Mrs. Bush’s who according to her State Department bio also supports libraries. Too bad there’s not one at the Embassy in Bern.
But think about it. How much revenue does the State Department generate yearly from visas for foreigners and passports for Americans?
The answer is lots - it’s the Department’s basic money making fee-for-service that I know of – so why can’t the department provide timely consular services in Switzerland?
I wasn’t able to calculate easily the overall revenues accrued from U.S. visa services because the figures vary substantially for type of visa – and I couldn’t find any overall numbers of visa applicants on the Department’s webpage. Figure, however, between $200 - $300 or more per visa applicant – and that includes the rejects, too.
The department’s passport webpage, however, is more organized and includes some interesting data.
According to the Department, it issued 8,825,410 passports to Americans in 2004. The fee for first time passports is $97, for renewals $67, and if you want your passport back in a timely fashion the charge is an additional $60. Thus the Department could easily have collected $856,064,770 just for its passport services during 2004. I know it’s expensive to employ an American official abroad but even so, just this tidy sum could translate into 8,560 consular officers at $100,000 each.
So I don’t get it. There seem to be plenty of funds for fortress embassies and nasty security officers – and believe me, neither produce revenue or good will – quite the opposite. So why doesn’t the administration divert a little more of its budget to winning friends – or in this case simply doing its job in a timely fashion?
The IHT Answer: Collis’ answer to the Mr. Keyser’s question also made me wonder.
Why should Keyser’s wife need to become an American citizen – and even if she chose to, the application and approval process for a citizen’s spouse takes years. Or just maybe she identifies as Brazilian. Or maybe Brazil does not allow for dual citizenship. Some countries don’t. Anyway, changing one’s citizenship – regardless of country – shouldn’t be taken lightly. It means new responsibilities, personal identity and commitment. Or at least it should.
Finally, why should someone have to go to a travel agent for help with an American visa and pay yet another fee? Certainly a good business travel agent including the two Collis recommends can save time for a busy person, but the Keysers appear to be planning well enough ahead to do it themselves. So why should they have to pay an intermediary to “jump to the head of the cue.” This, in my view, smacks of the all too many, too cozy third world relationships between inept governments and private fixers that grease bureaucracy’s wheels and impede good democratic governance. Or should the Keysers ask for help from Mr. Keyser’s Congressional representatives - that’s certainly been done before when all else fails. Sometimes even brings results.
But please, why can’t the U.S. Consular Section in Bern do a routine job in a timely fashion?
Update (2/15/06): More about Pamela Willeford here and here.