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Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl says long waits – some reaching 90 days – to receive approval for business visas are hurting manufacturers in this state and elsewhere. The visas are used by foreign business representatives to visit the U.S. for short periods of time. In recent years, as part of anti-terrorism efforts, they’ve come under close scrutiny.

“Companies in Wisconsin are concerned that when faced with this delay, foreign customers will be more likely to turn to overseas competitors who don’t have such a cumbersome visa process,” Kohl said in a recent statement. He said many of these customers are coming to Wisconsin to learn how to operate complex machinery they purchased from manufacturers in this state.

The Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on the delays, and they were also discussed last week at a meeting of the President’s Export Council, a panel that advises President Barack Obama on international trade issues.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the panel that the State Department is trying to eliminate old-fashioned paper applications for visas and speed up the applications of business travelers.

herb kohl

“We have tried some experiments to look for ways to do interviews (with applicants) over Skype. It doesn’t meet our security needs,” she said, referring to the web application that provides free videoconferencing.

Clinton said the application process, for security reasons, is necessarily complicated. “We train our consular officers to look at a visa application from a lot of different perspectives, and it’s unfortunate that that’s the world we find ourselves in.”

Clinton added, “When it comes to visa waivers, there are very strict standards that have to be met by the Department of Homeland Security. China, India and Brazil do not meet them, and that’s where a huge increase in visa applications are coming from.”

A study commissioned by a group representing the trade show industry (the non-profit Center for Exhibition Industry Research) concluded that long business visa waits were to blame for 116,000 people missing trade shows in the U.S. in 2010.

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