NRF Says Bill to Shorten Visa Processing Time Will Create U.S. Jobs

September 26, 2011

Tools

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The National Retail Federation today welcomed the introduction of legislation sponsored by Representative Joe Heck, R-Nev., intended to ease delays in the visa application process for Chinese, Indian and Brazilian citizens seeking to visit the United States, saying an increase in visitors could provide a significant economic boost for retailers and other businesses.

“Visitors from these rapidly developing countries are consumers who shop like it’s Black Friday, but because their wait time for a visa has become intolerably long, they’re taking their money elsewhere,” NRF Senior Vice President for Government Relations David French said. “This legislation would bring tourists back to the U.S. to shop, spurring much-needed growth in the U.S. It would put U.S. cities from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to New York on a level playing field with shopping meccas around the world, helping to create jobs here in America.”

“In addition to discouraging tourists, long visa wait times cause difficulties for U.S. retailers who need to bring staff from their growing numbers of overseas stores to the United States for training, and for foreign retailers traveling here for events like NRF’s annual convention in New York each January,” French said.

Heck’s legislation would require the State Department to hire sufficient staff at embassies and consulates in China, India and Brazil to allow visa applications to be processed in no more than 12 days. It can currently take as long as 120 days in China and 145 days in Brazil for applicants to receive an interview for a visa.

The bill would require the department to implement a pilot program that would allow visa interviews to take place by videoconference rather than requiring that they be conducted in person, and to publish interview wait times on its web site. A report on how the department is dealing with the demand for applications would be required, and officials would be directed to assess the possibility of making visas for Chinese citizens valid for 10 years, the same as those for India and Brazil, rather than the current one year.

Costs for the requirements would be covered by visa application fees and the State Department would be authorized to implement new fees or increase existing fees if needed to pay for the videoconferencing program.

The measure goes significantly beyond language included in a State Department funding bill adopted by the Senate Appropriations Committee last week. The Senate bill would give the State Department up to 30 days to process applications and would give the department discretion on whether to implement a videoconferencing pilot.

NRF earlier this year joined the Discover America Partnership, a broad coalition to advance visa and reentry reforms for international travel. A recent U.S. Travel Association found that simplifying and speeding up the visa process could create 1.3 million more U.S. jobs and add $859 billion to the U.S. economy by 2020 at little or no cost to taxpayers.

As the world’s largest retail trade association and the voice of retail worldwide, NRF’s global membership includes retailers of all sizes, formats and channels of distribution as well as chain restaurants and industry partners from the United States and more than 45 countries abroad. In the United States, NRF represents an industry that includes more than 3.6 million establishments and which directly and indirectly accounts for 42 million jobs – one in four U.S. jobs. The total U.S. GDP impact of retail is $2.5 trillion annually, and retail is a daily barometer of the health of the nation’s economy. www.nrf.com.