ELIMINATING THE "APPLCIATION RECEIVED" STAMP

UNCLAS NAIROBI 001823 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR CA/VO/F/P JILL NYSTROM E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: CVIS OEXC CMGT DHS KE SUBJECT: ELIMINATING THE "APPLCIATION RECEIVED" STAMP REF: A. STATE 4819 ¶1. Post received reftel and immediately discontinued use of the "application received" stamp. Nairobi has monitored the change over the past quarter and requests permission to reinstitute the stamp process for the following reasons: -- Issuances and refusals are not always being captured by the NIV system, and not always being electronically recorded. Post notices at least a half-dozen applications a day in which previous issuances and refusals are missing from the system. This is particularly problematic with children, who for unknown technical reasons, are often not captured as refusals. This forces officers to rely on the honesty of applicants' responses to DS-156 questions 31 about previous refusals. Nairobi is very concerned about refusals that potentially could go unnoticed due to the combination of technological deficiencies and unscrupulous applicants who now go unchecked by the "application received" stamp. -- Applicants in East Africa use fluid name conventions that often change from passport to passport. Even genuine passports often show dramatic changes in name from one passport to the next. Despite Post's effective use of alias fields, we believe that even slight name changes throw-off attempts by the NIV system to keep track of applicants' previous issuances and refusals. Nonetheless, in some situations, even persons with the same name and date of birth are not being captured electronically by the system, despite previous application records. It is too time intensive and not reasonable to expect line officers to countercheck NIV with the CCD to determine if applicants have had previous issuances or refusals that might not be appearing in the NIV system. -- There have been complaints from friendly Embassies, which have used the presence of an "applicantion received" stamp as a litmus test for their applicants. Post gets numerous requests from other missions to confirm whether we have refused applicants who have subsequently sought visas with them. This continued liaison function is beneficial for us and other missions, as we can discuss our shared applicant pool and their fraud trends. We believe that the discontinuation of the "application received" stamp will result in less interaction with other missions and may result in Post fielding dead-end questions about applicants not in our system. Finally, we realize that, with the disappearance of the stamp, friendly consulates will not even know when we have determined an applicant to be permanently ineligible, and would remain unaware of any such ineligibilities. ¶2. For the reasons outlined above, Nairobi requests Washington concurrence for the reimplementation of the "application received" stamping until the NIV electronic application tracking system becomes more reliable. RANNEBERGER