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Get your visa in 15 days, pay $1,000

Aziz Haniffa
India Abroad Correspondent in Washington

South Asian celebrities from Bollywood or elsewhere, business-people, H1-B visa workers or even top basketball players and athletes can now come to the United States much quicker than earlier if they can pay a thousand bucks.

Under a new programme launched on Thursday, first reported in The Washington Post, the Immigration and Naturalization Service will permit foreign celebrities, executives, athletes and other specific types of workers to get their work visa applications processed within 15 days, instead of the usual minimum three months or more, for a fee of $1,000.

The programme, known as the premium processing programme, is expected to generate $80 million a year and allow the INS to hire hundreds of extra workers to help all visa applicants.

Although the programme has been pilloried by pro-immigration advocates and other immigration experts, who believe it will create a disturbing two-tiered system by giving special access to wealthy foreigners and large corporations, the INS has defended it, arguing that it will alleviate a perennial complaint, particularly by businesses, that lengthy delays have precluded them from hiring workers when they are most needed.

According to the INS, these businesses, including those which like to import foreign celebrities to tour the US or act in various movies and plays, have indicated that they would rather pay extra for quicker service and thus be more competitive.

INS spokeswoman Eyleen Schmidt said the programme "will help everyone", and noted that "one of the larger motivating factors behind the premium processing programme is that it will give us a way to get extra revenue to hire more adjudicators and modernize all our systems across the board".

The programme is envisaged to benefit about 80,000 applicants a year and INS officials say it will also be expanded in late summer to include the H1-B visa programme for information technology workers -- nearly 50 per cent of whom each year have been from India.

Schmidt said that by the end of August, the agency would expand the programme to include all "non-immigrant workers" who seek employment in the United States, but are not interested in becoming permanent residents or green card holders.

But critics like Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Centre for Immigration Studies, warned that besides creating an unfair two-tiered system, the programme, by concentrating on the applicants who pay the extra $1,000 fee for quicker service, may well end up imposing even longer waits on applicants who cannot afford to pay.

He asserted that "the government ought to be processing immigration documents expeditiously for everybody".

As an example, Krikorian said, "You don't go the department of motor vehicles and pay extra to get ahead in line."

He said the only way to make the immigration system work better was by fully funding "an efficient mechanism for processing those immigrants".

The premium processing programme was pushed by the INS last year and approved by Congress and the Clinton administration as a little-known amendment in an appropriation bill.

The provision in the bill said the $1,000 fee "shall be used to provide certain premium-processing services to business customers". The attorney general has the prerogative to adjust the fee for inflation in future.

Initially, the programme will focus on about six or seven limited categories of visas, which allow foreigners to work in the US temporarily.

They include one category which allows celebrities and notable athletes, from international rock stars to foreign-born basketball and baseball players, to perform and play for teams in the US.

Another category allows scientists and artistes ranging from authors to playwrights and those with special skills to come to the US for employment for limited periods.

The new programme will almost immediately allow many executives and managers in foreign companies and multinational corporations that have a presence in the US to be eligible for expedited service.

The $1,000 fee will be in addition to the normal $110 processing charge and in the case of hi-tech companies filing H1-B petitions, the fee will be added on top of the $1,110 in current charges.

The INS said if the applicant does not receive a response from the agency within 15 days, the fee will be returned.

But Schmidt said the $1,000 fee did not guarantee approval of the visa, which would be subject to the usual criteria that applicants have to fulfil if they are to be admitted to the US.

Schmidt also took exception to the contention of the critics that the programme would take away from the services provided to applicants with more modest means, saying the money it generates would help the INS to hire more than 450 new employees in fiscal 2001, which begins on October 1 this year, to work exclusively on this programme. "We will make sure we have the resources on hand not to jeopardise other services," she said.

Schmidt also said that President George W Bush's 2002 budget requires that $20 million of the money the new programme brings in must be committed to improving services for immigrants sponsored by family members rather than employers.

But many immigration lawyers and experts remained sceptical, arguing that the programme was yet another way by the INS to bring some money into its coffers that receives only meagre funding from Congress -- most of which is used up on the US Border Patrol and other enforcement tasks.

They said the majority of immigration services depend on the user fees. "This is the 'money talks' scenario," said Crystal Williams of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

She said, "The INS's need for more money is what led to this" new programme. "They're so desperate for funds to clear their backlogs."

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