The State Department’s consular efforts to return tens of thousands of American travelers stranded abroad by the coronavirus pandemic this spring received mostly positive reviews at a congressional hearing this week.
Early stories from the pandemic told of U.S. tourists stuck in foreign capitals even as other nations were chartering planes to bring their nationals home, but since March, the department has been able to have more than 110,000 U.S. citizens and legal residents return home from 136 different countries and territories.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, the Texas Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on oversight, referenced some of those early delays at a Tuesday hearing on Capitol Hill, but also noted the progress the department’s consular officers have made since.
“When faced with an unprecedented crisis, it was the U.S. State Department that got Americans home safely,” Mr. Castro said.
But several lawmakers noted that it past mid-July and there are still some people stuck in countries that are not their home due to complications with visas. In some cases, visas had expired owing to delays caused by COVID-19.
Rep. Tom Malinowski, New Jersey Democrat, cited the case of a man working in the U.S. on an H-1B work visa who traveled home to India for a funeral and is still stuck there due to complications with his visa.
“Why is it that, at this point, with the resources we’ve given you, we cannot conduct expedited interviews in these relatively few cases where there is an American family that is broken up?” Mr. Malinowski said. He noted that the State Department now has the technology to conduct interviews online and the legal authority to waive the legal “in-person” meeting requirements.
Ian Brownlee, principal deputy assistant secretary for consular affairs, told the subcommittee that instructions were sent to fields on how individual posts around the world could resume more normal visa operations. But he also noted the plunge in global travel represented a hit to the Consular Bureau’s budget through lost processing fees.
“We are doing everything that we can do to get visa operations moving as quickly as possible,” Mr. Brownlee said.
One complication is money. Citizens have to pay a repatriation fee to the U.S. government when they finally secured transportation home.
“How we arrived at the individual’s costs of a particular flight is governed by law and regulation,” Mr. Brownlee said. Returnees, he said, were essentially paying the price of “pre-crisis flight.”
But he added said that no U.S. citizens had been left behind because of money concerns and that people could use either promissory note or the country the individual could be issued a repatriation loan.
But the money must be repaid, and some lawmakers pointed to the fact that passports maybe suspended until the repayment is received.
Rep. Debbie Dingell, Michigan Democrat, said that could cost people a lot of money at a time when many are already struggling financially due to pandemic. At least some other countries are not making citizens pay for repatriation, she said.
“How do we help them repay these loans?” Mrs. Dingell said.
Karin King, principal deputy assistant secretary for consular affairs, said that right now, the government does not have discretion when it comes to repayment loans.
“We want to get people out of harm’s way as soon as possible and that does require a repatriation loan program,” Ms. King said. “But we are not in a position to forgive those loans.”
Top members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in April asked the Government Accountability Office to study how U.S. consular services performed in the coronavirus crisis and to recommend reforms for future major disruptions to global travel patterns.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.