Carlos Gimenez Laments 'Totally Unacceptable' Delays To TSA Screening Tech Improvements

2 days ago

During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing, Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) questioned witnesses about visa and customs wait times for international travel into the U.S., and TSA improvements.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Dr. Kelly. Members will be recognized in the order of seniority for their five minutes

00:04of questioning, and I recognize myself for five minutes of questioning. Mr. Freeman,

00:10have we ever reached, I know that we had the pandemic, and then what was the highest year

00:17that we had international passengers in the United States? The highest year for international travel

00:22was 2018. We have gone down or remained below that every year since. We, at the end of last

00:28year, were only at about 90 percent of where we were pre-pandemic, so the U.S. continues to struggle

00:32to welcome international visitors in the numbers we previously did. Visa, coming into this year,

00:38visa concerns, custom concerns were top reasons for that. We can't ignore the strength of the dollar.

00:44We can't ignore our economy versus others coming into this year, but the issues that were within

00:49our control were 500-day-plus wait times to get an interview for a visa, multi-hour waits to get

00:55through customs. Both of those were big deterrents for foreign travelers.

00:58Was that a reality before the Trump administration, or that just happened in the last 60 days?

01:05We've ebbed and flowed in terms of where we are on visa wait times. The lowest we've ever been was

01:10during the Obama administration. We're all consulates around the world, process visas in two weeks or less.

01:15That has ebbed and flowed ever since. There were successes during the Trump term. There were more

01:21struggles coming out of the pandemic. We have really struggled to get the consular officials

01:27we need around the world and to get these visa wait times down.

01:30How do we end up with wait times of two weeks to 500 days? How did that happen?

01:35When you look at what happened post-pandemic or in the early days of the pandemic, all these

01:39foreign service officers came back home. They were slow to get back out to their consulates around

01:44the world. Processing visas is also the lowest rung on the totem pole of jobs within the foreign

01:51service officer community. It's not the most desired job out there. That's why we've recommended

01:56an alternative approach to doing this. If we want to get all wait times down to 30 days or less,

02:01which is something the United States of America should aspire to do, we need to take a new look

02:05at how we do this. These fees that foreign travelers pay can cover the cost of creating a new service

02:11that processes travelers. There's no need for foreign service officers to do this. There's a

02:15better way to do it. We think we could also use kind of emergency SWAT teams whenever wait times get

02:21high. We could send these officers or these officials into jurisdictions where they get high.

02:27The United States could be the most secure nation in the world and also the most efficient when it

02:31comes to processing travelers. But we lack technology, we lack the manpower, and we have lacked the manpower

02:37and technology for some time in order to do that. And also probably policy, right?

02:43I'm sorry?

02:44Policy.

02:45Manpower has been an enormous issue. Technology is an even bigger issue. I think the will to get it

02:50done is the largest issue, right? Where is the goal, right? We don't have a goal when it comes to

02:55processing visas. At the end of the Biden administration, they established a goal of 90 days or less.

03:00If we achieve that goal, we would have still been last in the world when it comes to processing visas.

03:05This was at the end of the Biden administration?

03:06At the end of the November of the Biden administration. We need to have greater

03:09aspirations when it comes to how we welcome travelers into this country. They want to do

03:15nothing more than come here, spend their money, and go home and tell their family and friends what a

03:19great time they had.

03:20So the Biden administration was in close to four years. Basically, right at the end of his

03:24administration, he decided, well, maybe we're going to have a 90-day period versus the 500-day period

03:30that some of these visas have taken?

03:31There's no doubt that the wait times peaked coming out of COVID. There were steps taken.

03:37It was a little too little too late. We're hopeful we could find bipartisan support to be more

03:42efficient in the future.

03:43Which, by the way, I agree that the passenger security fee that has been diverted for a number

03:50of years needs to be fully invested in TSA. I don't believe it. You're going to be paying for something,

04:00you're saying, I'm paying a passenger security fee. It should be for passenger security. That's a novel

04:05concept, I think, here in the federal government. I think that that can be said for administrations

04:10on both sides of the aisle. So I would hope, I know that one of my colleagues, Nick Laloa,

04:17had a bill to make sure that the passenger fee went to technology, et cetera, that we need at TSA,

04:25and I certainly support that. And I think we need to do more of that. The fact that we're not going

04:30to be upgrading our systems to the middle of 2040s, all right, that's totally unacceptable.

04:37Mr. Gruen, in terms of drones, and I only have about 30 seconds left, I found it interesting

04:45that you said that even if you put your technology, say, at all these stadiums, et cetera, to protect,

04:51that it would take a federal individual to say, go ahead and knock that drone out of the sky,

04:56that a local law enforcement could not make that call on its own to protect its own citizens?

05:02Correct. The local law enforcement, state and local, do not have the current authorities.

05:06Even federal have it only authorized in temporary durations, and only certain agencies.

05:12Fair enough. Okay. Maybe I'll come back to a second round. With that, I yield back,

05:18and now I recognize the ranking member of the gentleman from...

Carlos Gimenez Laments 'Totally Unacceptable' Delays To TSA Screening Tech Improvements

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