HAWAII, United States, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The visa processing time for Chinese, Brazilians and Indians may be shortened to 30 days, said a U.S. tourism official on Monday.

"The U.S. Senate just introduced a legislation last week to bring the waiting time (for a visa) to under 30 days," Roger Dow, president and CEO of U.S. Travel Association (USTA), told Xinhua at an annual China-U.S. tourism leadership summit on Big Island, Hawaii.

"Specifically they are looking at China and taking a look at the feasibility of not having a face-to-face interview," Dow said.

Reports said the Senate held a meeting on Wednesday to consider a State Department funding bill that would require the department to hire sufficient staff in China, Brazil and India to allow visa applications to be processed in no more than 30 days.

Shao Qiwei, chairman of China's National Tourism Administration, said China and the United States are working together to improve the efficiency of visa issuance.

Since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in 2007 that aimed to bring more customers to the U.S. tourism industry by facilitating group leisure travel from China to the United States and permit U.S. destinations to market themselves in China, the two countries have seen significant growth in this market, Shao said.

The three-day summit opening Monday is designed to build business through creating relationships and knowledge of both the Chinese and U.S. markets.

Members of USTA and the China National Tourism Association, including more than 70 regional tourism officials from the United States and China, attended the meeting.

Editor: Deng Shasha
English.news.cn 2011-09-27 20:16:10
Web link: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-09/27/c_131163369.htm

Updated: 2011-09-27 21:02
By Huang Zhiling and Kuang Peijing (China Daily Sichuan Bureau)

Enhancing understanding and promoting prosperity will be the two objectives during his three-year term as the Consul General of the American Consulate General in Chengdu, Sichuan province, said Peter Haymond.

The new Consul General who joined the Consulate General Chengdu team in early September said that the two objectives would be achieved by facilitating the visa process more smoothly and strengthening the cooperation between the United States and southwestern China.

In the past two years, the number of people applying for visas in the US Consulate General in Chengdu has increased two folds.

In the first nine months of this year, the number of visa applications approved in the US Consulate General in Chengdu equalled the total for last year, Haymond says.

I know lots of people want to go to the United States. But I did not expect the rapid expansion in visa applications, he says.

To cater to the new situation, the US Consulate General in Chengdu has improved the work conditions of its visa office, increased visa officers and opened more windows.

According to Haymond, there are 20,000 American students in China. He hopes more senior American officials will visit Southwest China to boost mutual understanding.

He says he will visit companies in the consular district in the month to come to see which companies are suitable for development in the United States.

A Department of State Foreign Service Officer for over 20 years, Haymond previously served at the U.S. embassies in China, Laos, Thailand and Korea.

He has also worked in the State Department’s Washington offices of energy policy, counter terrorism, and multilateral economic development affairs.

Haymond holds a Ph.D. degree in economics from The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University. He received his B.A. degree in economics and international affairs from Brigham Young University.

He speaks Lao, Thai, Mandarin Chinese and some French.

Web link: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/regional/2011-09/27/content_13805114.htm

The Beijing-based blog lawandborder.com has rounded up three news reports on a story that resonates deeply in California, but which was buried somewhat this weekend amid other news as the governor signed and vetoed bills. Last Thursday night, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution apologizing for past laws that discriminated against Chinese immigrants, notably the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

The law was enacted during a time in U.S. history that immigration from China was perceived as a national threat. It prohibited most Chinese immigration for a decade and barred those already in the U.S. from becoming citizens, among other things. The law wasn’t repealed until 1943.

A companion resolution is pending in the House. While it can be argued that nothing undoes the damage that shaped the Chinese American experience, both apologies are formal acknowledgments of wrongdoing. Lawandborder.com posted some background:

Due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese population in America declined from over 140,000 in the mid-19th century to 75,000 in 1940. Those who remained were permanently classified as foreigners because they were barred from naturalizing as U.S. citizens.

Most Chinese immigrants confronted a stark reality in terms of their family life. While husbands worked in the United States, wives and children remained in China. Chinatown was known as a “bachelor society.” Men hesitated to travel to China because it was difficult to get the certificate needed for reentry to the U.S.

Human smuggling proliferated. For example, some Chinese merchants lawfully in the U.S., who were allowed to bring dependents to the U.S., falsely testified that unrelated children were their sons and daughters. Other “paper” sons and daughters were created when the 1906 earthquake destroyed San Francisco’s City Hall and Hall of Records, leading to false claims of U.S. citizenship by birth. To pass official interrogations, which often took place at Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco and could last for weeks or months, these “paper” sons and daughters would memorize coaching books with specific information about family histories and ancestral villages (“How many water buffalo were there in your village?”).

The Act’s worst legacy is that it reinforced stereotypes that Chinese immigrants are dangerous, inferior, “alien,” un-American, and unwilling or unable to assimilate.

— lawandborder.com

Source: Lawandborder
Via: ImmigrationProf Blog
October 10, 2011 | 9:51 AM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Web link: http://multiamerican.scpr.org/jp/a-formal-senate-apology-for-the-1882-chinese-exclusion-act/