‘What’s The Plan?’: Jerry Moran Presses Blinken About Major US Visitor Visa Delays

3 months ago

During a House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) questioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken about Russian troops in Niger, delays in visitor visas and fentanyl.

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Transcript

00:00 Senator Moran.

00:01 I apologize.

00:02 Thank you, Senator Bozeman.

00:03 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:04 Mr. Secretary, introduction of Russian troops into Niger, same bases where American personnel,

00:16 including Kansas members of the National Guard are stationed.

00:20 What's being communicated to the junta in Niamey to make certain our service members

00:25 are protected?

00:27 And what can you assure me about our pending withdrawal that it will be safe and responsible?

00:33 Thank you, Senator.

00:34 My number one priority, the number one priority of the Secretary of Defense in this case is

00:38 force protection or personnel protection.

00:40 And particularly in a situation like Niger where, yes, we had a coup, we sought to reach

00:45 an agreement with the junta or the government that exists now about staying.

00:51 We haven't been able to reach an agreement that meets our needs.

00:55 But we've been absolutely clear with them about the imperative of making sure that as

01:02 we pull forces out, we do it in a way that is safe and secure for those forces, just

01:06 as our embassy personnel needs to be protected.

01:09 We have assurances from that government about that.

01:14 But my number one priority is making sure that whatever happens as we proceed with bringing

01:20 forces out, it's done in a way that protects them.

01:23 I think I read in the general press about a September 15th date for departure.

01:28 That's correct.

01:29 What's that based on?

01:30 Why from now until then?

01:31 Basically, the amount of time it takes to do it safely, securely, to retrograde the – all

01:37 of the material that's there.

01:39 Again, to your point, we also want to make sure that we not only bring our people home,

01:43 we bring all of the equipment home, technology home, because we certainly don't want Russians

01:48 or Russian proxies getting a hold of that.

01:51 And but concerning is we've spent billions of dollars in security assistance for countries

01:57 across the shaheel, including training their militaries.

02:03 I think we've seen five coups by the very military that the U.S. is training since 2020,

02:11 and the numbers I've seen suggest that terrorism-related activities grow by 2,000 percent in the last

02:17 15 years.

02:20 What is it that we need to do to change our policies, and where do we go?

02:26 Emphasis on security assistance versus governance, peacebuilding, conflict resolution.

02:31 Yeah, I think you put your finger on something critical, which is that as necessary as the

02:35 security and military assistance is, it's not sufficient.

02:39 And a more comprehensive approach that gets at trying to build government capacity, institutions,

02:46 transparency, economic development, social needs – all of those things are imperative

02:53 if we're actually going to have something that's sustainable.

02:55 So we have some comprehensive plans in place to do that.

02:59 With some of the countries surrounding the shaheel, we have the Global Fragility Act,

03:02 thanks to Congress and indeed many members of this committee, that gives us both the

03:07 means and the long-term approach to try to help build that up, because I think if we

03:11 don't, all the security assistance in the world is probably not going to work and we're

03:15 going to be on the wrong end of what you've just described.

03:19 Mr. Secretary, I think in last year's hearing I raised this topic and asked this question.

03:25 There's lots of reasons that this is important, but we have an average 400-day wait time to

03:35 receive a visitor's visa to the United States.

03:40 Senator Klobuchar and I have introduced the Visa Process Improvement Act.

03:44 I'm reminding you that we have the Olympics coming to the United States, FIFA, World Cup

03:53 in 2026 – 11 cities, including Kansas City, are hosting this event, these events.

04:01 It's expected to attract 8 million international visitors.

04:05 What's the plan?

04:08 Is there changes that we've not yet seen that improve the situation for the visa processing

04:14 system to address this 400-day average wait?

04:16 Yes, in short, yes.

04:18 And we've been on this relentlessly.

04:19 And the fact is, right now, more visitors can travel to the United States than ever

04:24 before as a result of visas.

04:25 For FY23, we issued 10.5 million non-immigrant visas, and that exceeds what we issued before

04:33 the pandemic, which is when we got into a great deal of difficulty.

04:38 Exceeds it by 20 percent.

04:40 We had – with the highest standards for security and vetting, which of course remains

04:45 critical in what we're doing.

04:47 We have reduced interview wait times across the board.

04:51 They are now at pre-pandemic levels in every single category except for first-time visitors

04:57 to the United States from non-visa waiver countries.

05:00 So this is an area that we're putting particular focus on, because every other wait time is

05:04 actually below now pre-pandemic wait times.

05:08 The processing times that are most impactful to our economy, whether it's students, temporary

05:13 workers, business travelers, all of those wait times are actually down.

05:18 So we have to focus on and we are focused on the first-time travelers who are not coming

05:22 from visa waiver countries.

05:23 We have dedicated extensive resources to this to make sure that both in our embassies and

05:29 back home we can do what's necessary to process people, process them quickly.

05:33 Is there any evidence, Mr. Secretary, that China has taken steps, tangible steps, to

05:40 reduce the flow of fentanyl and precursor chemicals into the United States?

05:43 Yes, a good start, but not enough.

05:47 By a good start, I mean this.

05:49 After the meeting between President Biden and President Xi, President Biden secured

05:54 an agreement by China to act – enact more effectively on this.

05:59 And what we've seen since then is the promulgation of new regulations to their chemical-producing

06:06 companies.

06:07 We've seen them take down some companies that were engaged in the illicit transfer

06:09 of chemical precursors.

06:12 And in addition, they established with us a working group so that we are working on

06:16 this regularly and we can bring information to them about things that we're seeing.

06:21 Having said that, we believe that to really have an impact on the flow of these precursors

06:26 that typically would go to Mexico, synthesized into fentanyl, come to the United States,

06:30 there are a few things that we really need to see.

06:32 One is very public law enforcement with prosecutions and convictions of people or enterprises that

06:40 are engaged in this.

06:41 Two, there are a number of chemical precursors that should be scheduled, that China at least

06:46 theoretically has agreed to schedule, that they still haven't, thus making it more

06:50 difficult for companies to divert them.

06:53 And third, there is a financial nexus between some actors and entities in China and criminal

07:00 organizations in Mexico in particular that they need to act on.

07:05 Is China ambivalent or it actually gains benefit from supporting the trade?

07:11 I think from what we've seen, they saw it before as principally a problem for us and

07:18 a demand problem that we were not addressing effectively.

07:22 We have made it clear to them that, one, this is a number one priority for us.

07:27 As you know well, Americans between the ages of 18 and 49, number one killer is fentanyl,

07:33 synthetic opioid.

07:34 So this is a national emergency.

07:36 Second, what we've seen is that even as our markets have become saturated, these criminal

07:41 enterprises are making markets elsewhere around the world, in our own hemisphere, in Europe,

07:45 in Asia.

07:46 And we've made it clear to China there's going to be a growing demand signal on you to act

07:51 responsibly in dealing with this.

07:53 You may not care so much if it's coming from us.

07:54 You're probably going to care more if it's coming from a lot of other countries.

07:57 We put together a coalition now of almost 150 countries and organizations to deal globally

08:03 with the synthetic drug crisis.

08:05 And I think China is hearing those demand signals and we're seeing action.

08:09 But again, it's a start, but it's not enough.

08:11 Thank you.

08:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]

‘What’s The Plan?’: Jerry Moran Presses Blinken About Major US Visitor Visa Delays

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