- On August 28, 2006, WMR reported on how the U.S. visa
issuing process was being outsourced to cronies with no accountability
for the visa fee funds received from U.S. embassies abroad. We reported
on what was occurring with the "I-Visa," a special visa required
for journalists wishing to visit the United States:
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- Certain U.S. embassies, like those in Copenhagen and
Berlin, through a bank wire contrivance, require visa fees to be paid into
special bank accounts established by the various U.S. embassies. In Germany,
the Bush cronies have cut a deal with a small outfit called Roskos and
Meier OHG, a 23-person subsidiary of the giant banking consortium, Alianz
Group. Roskos and Meier has only been around since 1994 when Messrs. Roskos
and Meier formed their company to provide insurance and financial services
in the Berlin-Brandenburg area. Now they have a lucrative sweetheart deal
with the U.S. embassy to confirm that visa fees have been paid from individuals
applying for visas at the Berlin embassy and Frankfurt consulate. The visa
payments go to a special account established at Dresdner Bank AG Berlin,
Bank Routing Number (BLZ): 120 800 00, Account No. (Kontonr.): 405 125
7600. In Denmark, the journalist visa money (600 Danish Kroner) is wired
to a special embassy account at the Jyske Bank Reg. No. 5013, account number
200200-2. Internet banking or bank-to-bank payments are not permitted.
The U.S. embassy in Helsinki requires journalists to pay 85 Euros into
Nordea Bank account #221918-16629.
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- We have now been informed that the US visa application
process is being further outsourced by the State Department's Bureau of
Consular Affairs to outside local contractors in cities around the world.
The Bush administration claims it is tightening up U.S. border patrols.
The State Department's program clearly shows that the Bush claims about
national security are fraudulent.
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- Bush's "Cash for Visas" program
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- If someone wishes to apply for a visa to come to the
United States, the visa applicant contacts a non-U.S. embassy local contractor
to apply for a visa. After the individual pays the visa application fee,
they are iven a phone number and a PIN number. The applicant phones a Call
Center and has up to 8 minutes to ask questions. The applicant is then
given an appointment date by the Call Center. When the applicant arrives
at the U.S. embassy Visa Section, the applicant's documents are screened
by another local contractor in a waiting room before the applicant presents
himself or herself for an interview at the consular window with an American
Consular Officer.
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- This system, worthy of the Soviet bureaucracy, increases
the number of applicants processed per day. With the application fee being
non-refundable, whether or not a visa is issued, the number of applicants
in one U.S. embassy in Latin America is 300 in one day at $100 per application,
that is $30,000 for one day at one US embassy.
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- With most of the document scrutiny placed in the hands
of private contractors, where fraud is more rampant than it is among U.S.
consular officials, the Bush administration is putting up for sale entry
to the United States. Security is being sacrificed for increased visa revenues,
most of which go to slush funds in foreign bank accounts. In 2006, 5,836,718
Immigrant and Non-Immigrant Visas were issued by U.S. Visa issuing offices
around the world. At $100 per visa, that equals a potential total of $583,671,800
in visa fees being collected by private contractors under the new outsourcing
system. That does not include the local bribes and kickbacks. Another Bush
legacy will be the criminalization of the U.S visa process.
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- http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
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