During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week, Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) questioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the delays for visas and the Global Engagement Center.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 and we have an economy that's pretty uniquely dependent on tourism.
00:05 Just last year, we had 359,000 jobs in tourism, $20 billion in wages,
00:11 and almost $80 billion in overall economic input.
00:16 But the excessive wait times for visas are really hurting communities like mine,
00:21 the different U.S. consular posts around the world.
00:25 And just to put this in perspective, the World Cup is coming to the Americas in 2026.
00:31 It's expected to attract 8 million international visitors,
00:35 some we think will come to Las Vegas from Southern California.
00:38 Tickets go on sale December 2025,
00:41 but in many countries, the wait time for getting a visa may make it already too late.
00:46 In Mumbai, the next available interview is October 2025, just two months before tickets go on sale.
00:54 In Bogota, it's February 2026, nearly two months after they go on sale.
00:59 And in Mexico City, it's already too late.
01:02 The available interview is in August 2026, which is a month after the World Cup is over.
01:08 Now, I know y'all have been making progress lowering wait times.
01:12 You have an expanded interview waiver authority.
01:15 But what about the people who haven't been here before?
01:18 And I think this problem is not only hurting us economically,
01:22 but it's part of our soft power and our cultural diplomacy.
01:26 So could you talk a little bit about how we can address this problem?
01:29 If you need additional resources, what the situation is.
01:33 No, I very much agree with you. We're intensely focused on this.
01:36 In FY23, we issued more non-immigrant visas by over 20% than we did before the pandemic,
01:43 which is when we started to have real challenges with both visas outside of the country,
01:47 passports inside of the country.
01:49 And we have reduced now interview times.
01:52 The wait times for interviews to pre-pandemic levels in every category except one.
01:56 And the one is first-time visitors to the United States who are from non-visa waiver countries.
02:00 So that's what we're intensely focused on now,
02:02 making sure that those wait times come down along with every other wait time.
02:05 The wait times that have come down, again, to pre-pandemic levels
02:10 include the categories that are most impactful on the United States economy,
02:13 students, temporary workers, maritime crew renewals, etc.
02:17 But the focus now is on making sure that those who are coming for the first time
02:21 and are not coming from a visa waiver country, that those times come down.
02:24 Are you keeping in mind the World Cup is coming rapidly?
02:26 Absolutely, very much so.
02:29 Well, we appreciate that. Thank you.
02:30 My other question has to do with the Global Engagement Center.
02:34 The Republicans on this committee seem to be confused about what that does
02:38 or maybe more importantly, what it doesn't do.
02:41 And that's been made pretty manifest in this flawed so-called investigation that they're conducting.
02:47 Would you talk about the national security consequences of failing to reauthorize the GEC?
02:53 Yeah, thank you.
02:54 As I mentioned, it's the only part of the United States government that is singularly dedicated
02:59 to directing and coordinating our efforts to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation abroad.
03:07 And I think if it were to be terminated, that is, if the sunset was allowed to happen
03:11 without being reauthorized, we would have policy and operational incoherence.
03:16 We'd have degraded public response to information manipulation by China, by Russia, by Iran,
03:22 by other foreign actors, and a growing number of allies who rely on the GEC
03:27 to help them develop the tools to expose and to deal with misinformation
03:31 and disinformation also would be let down.
03:34 We've seen time and again now the effectiveness of this organization
03:37 in exposing that disinformation in other parts of the world, including our own hemisphere.
03:43 Can you give us an example of something so it's really clear what the GEC does?
03:47 For example, we've seen that Russian websites that were producing and disseminating disinformation,
03:56 misinformation in the Western Hemisphere, in Africa, they were exposed, they were removed.
04:02 We revealed a campaign by Russia targeting U.S. and Western health initiatives in Africa,
04:07 trying to undermine the credibility of those initiatives.
04:11 They were exposed and we were able to deal with that.
04:14 We revealed a campaign to launder Kremlin disinformation through local media
04:18 in the Western Hemisphere, trying to gin up arguments against Ukraine,
04:24 against NATO in our own hemisphere.
04:27 Exposed and we were able to more effectively deal with that.
04:30 Similarly with China, we've seen Chinese disinformation in third countries about elections.
04:37 We've done open source mapping through the GEC of their efforts to use surveillance
04:42 and data collection in Xinjiang, which we've made available to people.
04:46 So in a whole variety of ways, we've been able to not only expose this,
04:50 but also working with countries, we now have 29 countries that use the GEC platform
04:58 and hundreds of users to not only expose, but also help develop the tools themselves
05:05 to take action to remove and deal with disinformation.
05:08 But I want to emphasize, this has nothing to do with the United States.
05:10 It's not focused on this country at all.
05:16 It is entirely about misinformation and disinformation abroad being perpetrated by adversaries.
05:22 Gentlelady's time's expired.
05:24 Thank you.
05:25 Chair now recognizes a gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mast, for five minutes.