Sir

Your News story “Researchers rage at tightened restrictions on US immigration” (Nature 422, 457–458; 2003) highlights a growing impediment to international science and technology collaborations. For scientists, students and would-be terrorists wanting to enter the United States, the initial point of contact with immigration policies and practices is the US consular-affairs officer in their own country. This is usually a junior Foreign Service officer — typically new to the country and the local language, lacking in scientific or technical training, and demoralized by long lines of anxious applicants and by highly regulated routine work assignments. Consular Affairs is one of five job categories or 'cones' within the State Department. It is the least attractive cone among career Foreign Service officers. Its workload is expected to rise to 12 million non-immigration visa applications by 2005 (according to a report in the Foreign Service Journal, March 2001), making visa and passport services an even less attractive profession.

Last August, consular officers received updated State Department instructions on how to apply the Technology Alert List and the list of 'state sponsors of terrorism' to the visa-screening process. Ideally, consular staff should be augmented by intelligence and law-enforcement personnel trained to recognize suspect applicants, and others with scientific or technical backgrounds. Instead, the current officers have been instructed to post these two 'cheat sheet' lists at the “interview windows where the staff can become familiar with the contents”. (The department's updated instruction cable is available online at http://travel.state.gov/state147566.html.)

The visa staffing, instructions and evolving interagency review process seem guaranteed to further slow the entry of foreign scientists, students and visitors into the United States. For now, official Washington appears to be content with that frustrating backlog, as suggested by congressional comments such as: “Our security is more important than your convenience.” That attitude is likely to endure until the airlines, tourism and other global industries begin to make the same complaints that the scientific community is making now.