Justice Department Bars Human Rights Violators from United States

State Department official calls visa process critical tool for keeping abusers out

Preventing human rights violators from coming into the United States and identifying and removing them if they have been able to settle there are the goals of interagency efforts to ensure that abusers find no sanctuary in the United States, federal officials told a congressional hearing on December 8.

For more than 25 years, the U.S. Department of Justice has investigated and prosecuted individuals living in the United States guilty of Nazi crimes. Now the department's Criminal Division is the country's key entity in global law enforcement efforts to end impunity for perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"The gravity of the offenses committed abroad by human rights violators who have immigrated to this country gives their cases an especially strong claim on the attentions of federal law enforcement authorities," said Eli M. Rosenbaum, director of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, during testimony before a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee. "Perpetrators of egregious human rights abuses who have immigrated here also pose a threat to public safety in this country."

The United States won an important denaturalization action in May against Josias Kumpf, a former Nazi concentration camp guard living in Racine, Wisconsin, Rosenbaum said. Kumpf has appealed that decision.

Recent charges were brought in Lithuania against Algimantas Dailide of Brecksville, Ohio, and Gulfport, Florida, who was denaturalized and deported from the United States after OSI proved that Dailide served in the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian Security Police, he told the hearing.

Since President Bush signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act in December 2004, Rosenbaum said the OSI has worked to identify, investigate and prosecute human rights violators in the United States.

Rosenbaum also cited the case of Kelbasso Negewo, who served in the oppressive regime that ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991 before immigrating to the United States. Negewo was accused by three Ethiopian women in Atlanta, who alleged they had been tortured in an Ethiopian jail that Negewo controlled. The court found that Negewo supervised and participated in the torture of the women and awarded them damages. After a denaturalization action was filed against Negewo in 2001, his U.S. citizenship was revoked in October 2004, and Negewo is in federal custody pending the outcome of removal proceedings initiated in January.

Rosenbaum said that OSI efforts have resulted in the identification and removal of modern-day human rights violators, including Enos Kagaba, who was removed from the United States in April and sent to Rwanda for prosecution on charges related to the genocide that swept that country in 1994. This marked the first time, Rosenbaum said, that a removal was carried out based on involvement in genocide.

Many human rights violators have been able to gain entrance to the United States by misrepresenting their past, he said. Now OSI often works jointly with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to litigate or track cases involving suspected human rights violators.

"We have for some time recognized that the visa process is critical to keeping human rights abusers out of the United States," said Stephen A. Edson, deputy assistant secretary for visa services in the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs, at the hearing.

He outlined for the committee the State Department's visa lookout system, which alerts U.S. consulates about individuals whom the United States might wish to exclude from entry based on human rights concerns. More than 3,000 names in that system have been determined as ineligible or potentially ineligible under the State Department's genocide exclusion, Edson said.

Following are the prepared remarks of Rosenbaum and Edson:

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Statement of Eli M. Rosenbaum
Director
Office of Special Investigations
Criminal Division
Department of Justice

Before the House Committee on Appropriations
Subcommittee on Science, the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies

Concerning

The Department of Justice's Efforts Targeted at Human Rights Violators in the United States

December 8, 2005

Chairman Wolf, Ranking Member Mollohan, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to discuss the initiatives that the Department of Justice is taking to identify, locate, investigate and take action against perpetrators of genocide and other egregious human rights violations who have immigrated to this country and have obtained United States citizenship. Such individuals are a danger to the public and have no place in American society. We must therefore continue to explore all avenues for utilizing against them all of the important legal tools that Congress has provided us over the years.

Twenty-five years after the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) was created to seek justice in the World War II Nazi cases, my office recently became the newest addition to the government team that is pursuing justice in the "modern" human rights violator cases. As such, we are but one component of a comprehensive federal interagency effort to ensure that perpetrators of these terrible crimes find no sanctuary in this country.

Federal efforts directed against human rights violators are part of an important and time-honored national commitment. The United States Government has long been a key participant in global law enforcement efforts to help end impunity for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Thus, for example, our nation has taken a leading role in establishing and supporting such notable institutions as the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals after World War II and, more recently, the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the Iraqi High Tribunal. Ongoing Justice Department activities directed against suspected human rights violators in this country, combined with the Department's undiminished efforts to bring Nazi criminals to justice and its extensive provision of investigative assistance to foreign authorities that are prosecuting human rights violators, are an important part of the government's continuing contribution to achieving that crucial goal. As President Bush has said, those who commit such crimes must face justice, both to advance the cause of justice and to consolidate peace and promote the rule of law.l

In more than two decades of investigating and bringing civil denaturalization and removal proceedings against individuals who took part in the perpetration of Nazi crimes against humanity, those of us who work at OSI have, time and again, encountered the unsettling reality that it was, in most cases, very easy for such individuals to immigrate to the United States after World War II. Despite determined efforts by U.S. authorities to screen visa applicants and to deny visas to suspected Nazi criminals, the lack of readily available and credible information on the true wartime residences, affiliations and activities of most of the hundreds of thousands of applicants who presented themselves as so-called "displaced persons" meant that, in the vast majority of cases, the government had to rely on the applicant's own account of his wartime background. Because few individuals who had participated in Axis crimes disclosed the truth to U.S. immigration authorities, many such perpetrators succeeded in immigrating to the United States, and most eventually obtained U.S. citizenship. For more than a quarter of a century, the Department of Justice has been systematically and proactively tracing, investigating and civilly prosecuting these individuals. During that period, the government has won more such cases than have been won by the combined efforts of all of the other governments of the world. Year after year, in recognition of its commitment to pursuing justice in these cases, the United States Government has been the only government in the world to win the "A" rating of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Los Angeles-based organization named after the renowned Nazi-hunter.

Our ongoing prosecutions include cases such as the denaturalization action we won in May against Josias Kumpf, a former Nazi concentration camp guard living in Racine, Wisconsin. The defendant had admitted under questioning by an OSI attorney that in the course of a mass killing operation in occupied Poland in 1943, he stood guard at a pit containing dead Jewish civilians and others he described as "halfway alive" and "still convuls[ing]," with orders to shoot to kill anyone who attempted to escape. Kumpf is appealing the court's decision to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. We continue to work with prosecutors overseas to facilitate the criminal prosecution of Nazi criminals after we succeed in removing them from the United States. Just two weeks ago, for example, the Lithuanian authorities announced that they have brought charges against former OSI defendant Algimantas Dailide of Brecksville, Ohio, and Gulfport, Florida. He was denaturalized and removed from this country after OSI proved that while serving in the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian Security Police in occupied Vilnius, he took part in arresting Jewish men, women and children who had been lured in a "sting" operation into escaping from the barbed wire-enclosed Jewish ghetto in which the city's 50,000 Jews had been confined under horribly inhumane conditions. Some Jews arrested by Dailide's unit were sent for immediate execution at giant pits that had been dug in a wooded area of the nearby hamlet of Paneriai, and the others were sent back to the ghetto, to be held there for execution at Paneriai at a later date.

Just as Nazi criminals took advantage of the American people's traditional generosity in welcoming many thousands of immigrants each year, modern-day human rights violators have been able to gain entrance to this country, frequently by misrepresenting their pasts. Indeed, DHS' Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is litigating or tracking cases involving numerous suspected human rights violators. Of these suspects, a few have succeeded in obtaining United States citizenship. Those individuals are under joint investigation by ICE and OSI.

The gravity of the offenses committed abroad by human rights violators who have immigrated to this country gives their cases an especially strong claim on the attentions of federal law enforcement authorities. Perpetrators of egregious human rights abuses who have immigrated here also pose a threat to public safety in this country. They possess, after all, a demonstrated propensity to engage in acts of violence. It is particularly unfair to require surviving victims of human rights abuses who have made new homes here to share their adopted homeland with their former tormenters. Moreover, as Congressman Foley emphasized last year in introducing the human rights violators amendment to the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, there can be a nexus between terrorism and human rights violations, and hence individuals may be found in the United States who participated in both categories of heinous offenses. Indeed, the most notorious state sponsors of terrorism have also had some of the world's worst human rights records.

The Department is grateful that Congress has made a panoply of remedies available to the government in the human rights violator cases. Responding in part to disclosures made by human rights groups and journalists concerning the presence of human rights violators in this country, Congress included in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act important provisions that, for the first time, expressly bar participants in foreign government-sponsored extrajudicial killings and torture from entering or remaining in this country and from obtaining citizenship. Those provisions will significantly facilitate the prosecution of civil denaturalization and removal cases.

Pursuant to the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, OSI has explicit authority to identify and investigate suspects who have gained U.S. citizenship. When sufficient evidence is amassed that citizenship was procured fraudulently or illegally, OSI is responsible for instituting denaturalization proceedings, in partnership with the United States Attorneys Offices (USAOs). Judicial revocation of the perpetrator's United States citizenship then sets the stage for the initiation of removal proceedings by ICE. As the vast majority of human rights violator cases have involved aliens and have been brought as removal actions, ICE retains the investigative responsibility in most of the cases and discharges the prosecutorial authority in them as well. ICE has won important victories in these cases. This past April, for example, it accomplished the removal of Enos Kagaba to Rwanda, where he had participated in the genocide that ravaged his country in 1994. This marked the first time that a removal was carried out on the basis of involvement in genocide.

If complicity can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt and if statutes of limitations and other stringent statutory requirements are satisfied, USAOs can institute criminal proceedings, charging genocide, torture or war crimes. Some human rights violators can be subject to criminal prosecutions for visa fraud, unlawful procurement of naturalization, false statements, and other domestic offenses. The United States may also be able to extradite modern-day human rights violators to stand trial abroad, as was accomplished in a few of the Nazi cases. Extradition, however, is contingent upon receipt of a request from a foreign government with which the United States has an extradition treaty for the surrender of a fugitive human rights violator found in this country who has committed an offense covered by the treaty. Upon the successful conclusion of extradition hearings, and following favorable action by the Secretary of State, the fugitive is transferred to the custody of the government of the requesting nation, to stand criminal trial there.

In cases of aliens residing in the United States who are suspected of complicity in human rights violations, the bulk of the investigative work is performed by ICE agents. Naturalized U.S. citizen suspects are investigated principally by OSI's teams of prosecutors and historian-country specialists in partnership with ICE agents.

Irrespective of whether particular human rights violator cases are ultimately pursued as criminal prosecutions or as civil denaturalization and removal actions, the investigative challenges they pose to federal law enforcement authorities cannot be overstated: as in the Nazi cases, the crimes took place thousands of miles from the United States; there is frequently a significant passage of time since the crimes were committed; potentially cooperative witnesses (if any such individuals survived) are difficult to find; other evidence is either nonexistent or extremely difficult to locate and access; and the burden of proof borne by the government is a high one. Civil denaturalization and removal cases must be proved under standards that impose higher burdens on the government than does the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard that ordinarily applies in civil cases.

To meet these challenges, the Department has played a leadership role in developing a government-wide interagency and interdisciplinary approach to addressing the problem of human rights violators in the United States. Within the Criminal Division, a human rights violator cases working group, comprised of senior managers and attorneys from the Counterterrorism Section (CTS), the Domestic Security Section (DSS), the Office of International Affairs (OIA), and OSI, coordinates the Criminal Division's investigative and prosecutorial efforts in these cases, working with the USAOs, ICE, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, other federal components, foreign law enforcement authorities, and non-governmental organizations as appropriate. Any matter that has been referred to, or otherwise comes to the attention of any one of the sections or offices participating in that working group is shared with the other member components, and each such matter is then reviewed for potential investigation and criminal prosecution and/or for investigation and civil denaturalization prosecution. The working group weighs the evidence and determines what criminal or civil statutes may be applicable, evaluates all options available to the Department of Justice, and then determines the most appropriate course of action in each case. Transmission of Criminal Division and USAO requests to foreign law enforcement authorities for investigative assistance is facilitated principally by OIA in criminal investigations and by the State Department in OSI's civil denaturalization investigations. As convictions for violations of criminal statutes may also be a basis for the entry of removal orders, coordination with and referral to the Department of Homeland Security takes place in appropriate cases.

The Department and DHS have also spearheaded the creation of an ad hoc interagency working group to address the human rights violator cases. That group, which is led by Justice Department and DHS officials, continues to devise and implement strategies for enhancing and coordinating the enforcement of applicable federal laws. It currently consists of components of the Department of Justice Criminal Division (specifically, CTS, DSS, OIA and OSI), the Department of Homeland Security (both United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and ICE), the Department of State, the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency. Other agencies and components have been and will continue to be consulted and invited to participate, as appropriate. The group has focused particularly on improving procedures for gathering and sharing evidence and information about human rights violators, for determining what measures should be taken against such individuals, and for deciding which federal components should take those actions in particular cases.

Through continuous consultation, information sharing, and other cooperative activities, and through effective outreach to foreign law enforcement authorities and to non-governmental organizations, the ad hoc interagency group, the Criminal Division working group, and the individual components of the two groups have made significant progress in promoting effective implementation of applicable federal laws.

With respect to denaturalization investigations, ICE and OSI have established an extremely close working relationship. Currently, when ICE becomes aware of human rights violator suspects who have been naturalized as United States citizens and who appear to fall within the parameters described in Section 212(a)(3)(E) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, it notifies OSI at the headquarters level through established points of contact in the Human Rights Violators and Public Safety Unit in ICE's Office of Investigations. ICE provides OSI with the name and location of the special agent or other ICE personnel assigned to the investigation. Similarly, when OSI identifies individuals (both aliens and naturalized U.S. citizens) whom it suspects of participation in human rights violations, it notifies ICE at the headquarters level through the same points of contact. In the cases of subjects who have acquired United States citizenship, this mutual notification system ensures that joint investigative action can be commenced promptly. ICE and OSI have already utilized these procedures successfully in numerous cases involving both aliens and naturalized citizens, and joint investigations are in progress. OSI additionally ensures that the other components of the Criminal Division working group are apprised on a timely basis of the identity of all subjects of such investigations and of significant investigative developments in those cases.

The Criminal Division also assists USAOs in dealing with human rights violator matters, such as by providing guidance and expert legal advice, either upon receiving a request for assistance from a USAO or by offering assistance to a USAO on its own initiative. The extensive international contacts and expertise that have been developed over many years by OSI and other components of the Criminal Division can be of particularly great value in these matters, as all of the cases concern crimes that took place outside the United States and it is therefore frequently necessary to obtain evidence in foreign countries.

In the short time since the President signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, the Department has launched an intensive and comprehensive effort to utilize the important new tools provided by Congress in human rights violator cases. In moving swiftly to identify, investigate and take legal action against human rights violators in this country, the Department has received invaluable assistance and cooperation from ICE, FBI, and the State Department, as well as from other federal agencies, foreign authorities, and non-governmental organizations. The outstanding cooperation and leadership provided by ICE's Human Rights Law Division and by the Human Rights and Public Safety Unit in the ICE Office of Investigations deserve special mention.

Although OSI had assisted USAOs in human rights violator cases in the past, after the President signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act last December, OSI quickly restructured its operations to facilitate commencing its own efforts to pursue justice in these cases systematically and aggressively. Since then, through a combination of proactive investigative work (including identifying thousands of human rights violator suspects and checking their names against U.S. immigration records to identify such individuals who have come to the United States) and referral of matters by ICE for joint investigation, OSI has commenced numerous investigations. At the same time, OSI has continued to investigate and prosecute its World War II cases with undiminished vigor and determination, in keeping with the profound moral obligation owed to survivors of Nazi inhumanity and to the memory of those who perished. Indeed, OSI is currently carrying one of the heaviest litigation caseloads in its history.

I would like to share a poignant example of how justice can be and already has been achieved in the human rights violator cases through the prosecution of denaturalization actions in federal courts. The case of Kelbessa Negewo, who served as a local official under the repressive military regime that ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991, illustrates the effective use of this law enforcement tool. After immigrating to the United States and settling in Georgia, Negewo obtained U.S. citizenship. Three Ethiopian women subsequently filed suit against him under the Alien Tort Claims Act in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, alleging that they had been tortured in a jail that he had controlled. The district court found that Negewo had both supervised and directly participated in the torture of the women, and the court awarded damages. A denaturalization action was filed against Negewo in May 2001 by the USAO in Atlanta. His U.S. citizenship was revoked in October 2004 pursuant to a settlement agreement. Negewo is currently in federal custody pending the outcome of removal proceedings initiated by ICE in January 2005 - the first removal action brought under the human rights violator provisions of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. If the United States is successful in these proceedings, Negewo likely will be removed to Ethiopia, where in 2002 he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment for numerous human rights violations, including thirteen counts of murder, three counts of disappearance, one count of torture, and one count of unlawful taking of property.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to express to you and the Subcommittee the Justice Department's appreciation for this opportunity to discuss the Department's ongoing efforts to protect the American public and secure a measure of justice on behalf of the victims of human rights violations. We deeply appreciate the tools that Congress has already provided for law enforcement use in these important cases, and we will continue to use all lawful and appropriate measures at our disposal to pursue justice for the victims of human rights violations and protect the American people. As Director of the Office of Special Investigations, I am especially grateful for the confidence that Congress has placed in OSI to pursue postwar human rights violators and for the steadfast and bipartisan Congressional support that has been so important to the success that OSI has achieved in its Nazi denaturalization and removal cases over the past 25 years. We are very eager to continue applying the expertise that we have gained in our World War II investigations and prosecutions to the pursuit of justice in the modern human rights violator cases.

I would be pleased to answer any questions that the Subcommittee may have.

1 Statement by the President on Bringing War Criminals to Justice, August 3, 2001, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010803-15.htm1 ("Those who commit war crimes must face justice. As I said in Kosovo, we must not allow difference to be license to kill, and vulnerability an excuse to dominate. These two steps [the transfer of three suspects to the UN International Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia and the Tribunal's conviction of General Radislav Krstic] advance the cause of justice, but also help to consolidate peace and promote the rule of law.")

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(Prepared Remarks)

Preventing Human Rights Violators, War Criminals, and Perpetrators of Genocide from Entering the United States

Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies
Committee on Appropriations
United States House of Representatives

Testimony of
Stephen A. "Tony" Edson
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services
Bureau of Consular Affairs

December 8, 2005
Washington, DC

Chairman Wolf and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to discuss the role of the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs in preventing human rights violators, and perpetrators of genocide or other war crimes abroad, from entering the United States. Our embassies and consulates are America's first line of defense against such individuals who seek to enter the United States, sometimes to avoid legitimate prosecution for their offenses in their home countries.

I am proud of the fact that the Bureau of Consular Affairs has played a positive role in this area over a long period of time. We have for some time recognized that the visa process is critical to keeping human rights abusers out of the United States. For example, in April 2000 the Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs reached out to all the regional bureaus, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and other interested Department bureaus and offices to ensure that they were aware of the many legal options we have to deal with human rights abusers or other visa applicants whose travel to the United States may present policy concerns. We also sent instructions to consular officers that visa cases involving significant foreign policy concerns, including human rights considerations, must be submitted to the Department for an advisory opinion before the visa can be issued -- and that they should be alert to such cases even when they are not in the visa lookout system.

In addition, the Bureau has solicited names and other identifying information from bureaus regarding persons whom we might seek to exclude on human rights grounds, to ensure that their names are in the lookout system. A recent example occurred after Secretary Powell declared that genocide was occurring in Sudan: we convened a meeting with the relevant bureaus to ensure that steps were being taken to add relevant names into the lookout system. Today, we have over 3,000 names in our system of persons who have either been determined to be ineligible under the genocide exclusion or who are potentially ineligible. Most of these entries relate to Rwandans.

These efforts all reflect our recognition that the best way to stop individuals alleged or known to have been involved in human rights violations, genocide, and/or war crimes, from enjoying the benefits of our society is to identify and stop them beforehand, ideally by having our consular officers spot them on visa lines. In addition to the steps just mentioned, we have benefited since September 11, with the assistance of legislation -- from increased data sharing among federal agencies, so that consular officers abroad have had access to a database more than double the size of what they could consult prior to 2001. This means that if DHS or other agencies have made entries for suspected human rights abusers, we will also have them at the fingertips of consular officers who adjudicate visa applications abroad.

The visa lookout system entries include both persons already found to be ineligible for a visa and those who may be ineligible; these entries will indicate either the potential ground of inadmissibility or be "00" entries. All "00" entries and many other entries of potential grounds of inadmissibility require that the case be referred to Washington for review. When a case is referred to the Department, either because of a lookout entry or because the consular officer flags it on his or her own initiative, the Department considers all available authorities for possible visa denial. We also coordinate the Department's response, consulting as appropriate with other bureaus -- including the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and the Legal Adviser's Office, with the Intelligence Community, and with other agencies.

If and when a visa applicant is determined to have links to human rights violations, or war crimes, we have a wide range of options for refuse their application. Many of these are in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). These include:

Section 212 (a)(2)(G), relating to Foreign Government Officials Who have Engaged in Particularly Severe Violations of Religious Freedom;

Section 212(a)(2)(H), relating to Significant Traffickers in Persons;

Section 212(a)(3)(E)(i) and (ii), relating to Participants in Nazi Persecutions or Genocide;

Section 212(a)(3)(E)(iii), relating to the commission of Acts of Torture or Extra judicial Killings; and

Perhaps most importantly, since it is very flexible, the Secretary's authority under section 212(a)(3)(C) of the NA, which makes inadmissible any alien whose entry or proposed activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States. The Department is fully committed to denying visas to persons whose presence here would have potentially serious adverse consequences for our human rights related foreign policy.

In addition, a number of provisions outside the INA are available to us. For example:

The issues of forced sterilization and forced abortion are addressed in Section 801 of the Admiral James W. Nance and Meg Donovan Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001, P.L. 106-113;

Participation in certain political killings in Haiti is addressed in Section 616, P.L. 105-277 - also known as the "DeWine Amendment" for its sponsor; and,

The issue of coerced organ or bodily tissue transplantation is addressed in Section 232, P.L. 107-228.

And, the Department enforces the suspensions of entry effected by numerous Presidential Proclamations issued pursuant to Section 212(f) of the INA. This section allows the President to "suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate". The President has done this in a number of cases to address human rights-related concerns. For example, Proclamation 7524 of February 22, 2002, suspended entry of "senior members of the government of Robert Mugabe and other Zimbabwe nationals who formulate, implement, or benefit from policies that undermine or injure Zimbabwe's democratic institutions or impede the transition to a multi-party democracy.

While it is not directly relevant to human rights issues, I also wanted to share another way in which we have been creative in using our existing legal authorities to exclude from the United States people who engage in harmful acts. The Department and the Department of Homeland Security have a long-standing policy that members of specified groups we have determined to be permanent criminal organizations can be found ineligible for a visa under the provisions of section 212(a)(3)(A)(ii) because such membership gives us reason to believe that such an alien would likely seek to enter the United States to engage in unlawful activity. In 2005, State and DHS agreed formally that these specified organizations will include any of the organized Salvadoran street gangs in North America, including, but not limited to, the Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS 13) and 18th Street gangs, and that reference has been included in the Foreign Affairs Manual guidance to consular officers.

It is important to note that consular officers make their visa decisions based on information available at the time of an individual's application. In some instances, relevant derogatory information only becomes available after a visa has been issued to an applicant. In cases such as this, the State Department is still able to revoke the visa pursuant to the Secretary of State's statutory authority granted in Section 221(i) of the INA, based on information suggesting possible involvement in human rights violations, or criminal or war crimes links.

And, of course, our consular officers undergo continual training to enable them to bring their country knowledge, language fluency, interviewing skills, and good judgment to bear on every individual visa application before we allow that applicant access to our country.

Once again, thank you, Mr. Chairman and the members of the Committee, for inviting me to participate in this important hearing. We at the Department of State look forward to working with Congress, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security to prevent human rights violators and war criminals from entering the United States. At this time, I am prepared to answer any questions you may have.

Source: U.S. Department of State

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