Participant Selection and Preventing Non-Returnees: Announcement from the USAID RO
Following, is an announcement from the USAID RO from an email sent to all Visa Compliance System R2 Verifiers:
The purpose of this email is to remind R-1's and R-2's involved in USAID's J visa process that while the vast majority of people that USAID funds for travel to the United States for training or other purposes are legitimate, there are those who attempt to secure a USAID J-visa with no intent of honoring their conditions of sponsorship or returning to their home country.
In recent months there has been an increase in the number of non-returnees. In a few of these cases, additional due diligence on the part of partner organizations could have uncovered that the participant intended to defraud USAID. One recent case involved a participant whose letter of recommendation from his employer was a fake, a fact that could have been established had the participant's employment been verified.
In other instances, such intent may be harder to divine. However, what we know about these recent cases reflects the common wisdom that USAID partner organizations that are familiar with their participants, who meet with them and work with them and can verify the information given to them by the participant, are less likely to run into non-returnee situations. Those partner organizations that are not as selective and are not as familiar with their participations are ripe for being exploited by individuals who wish to gain entry to the US for the purpose of remaining permanently.
In a recent poll of VCS Approvers, several respondents credited partner organization selection criteria and process for the fact that their Mission had never had to reject an exchange visitor based on information gathered through the Security Risk and Fraud Inquiry (SFRI) required in USAID's ADS 252 regulations. Likewise, several respondents also pointed to poor selection criteria and processes for the fact that they had, on occasion, had to reject an exchange visitor based on information gathered through the SRFI.
The participant selection process is the first line of defense against non-returnees and the resulting waste of USAID resources. The due diligence of partner organizations in the detection of potential non-returnees is critical. Partners and Missions should work together to make sure that each participant is interviewed, considering each individual's ties to their home country and to the United States. And, of course, they should verify the validity of letters of recommendation and other application materials, confirming employment and home addresses, and dialing phone numbers provided by participants, among other things. If you have any suspicion or reason to believe that a participant does not intend to complete his/her U.S. training event, or that a participant intends to remain in the U.S. and not return home, then you should not select that participant for USAID sponsorship.
Feel free to contact me (jnindel@usaid.gov), but please also refer to the following documents for further guidance:
The Complete Guide, USAID Visa Compliance
Thank you,
Jim Nindel, USAID/EGAT