This page contains bill sponsorships in the Senate and House. Bill sponsorships indicate the topics that legislators are most interested in, and spend the most time on.

11-HR3039 on Sep 23, 2011

Congress finds the following:
1. International travel to the US generates more than $134 billion annually in exports and supports 1.8 million US jobs
2. Global travel spending is expected to double over the next decade, reaching $2.1 trillion
3. While world-wide long-haul international travel grew by 40% between 2000 and 2010, the US market share of long-haul travel dropped from 17% in 2000 to 12% during the same timeframe
4. Lagging overseas arrivals result in large part from a US visa application process that is perceived by potential business and leisure travelers as inefficient, time consuming, and inaccessible
5. Removing the self-imposed barriers in the visa application process that currently discourage inbound international travel to the US would yield significant economic and public diplomacy benefits for the US
6. Increased international travel to the US also achieves US foreign policy objectives by introducing foreign visitors to the US and to Americans, who are the US' best goodwill ambassadors.

• The Secretary of State shall set a visa processing standard of 12 or fewer calendar days at US diplomatic and consular missions in China, Brazil, and India.
• The Secretary of State shall conduct a two-year pilot program for the processing of nonimmigrant visas using secure remote video-conferencing technology as a method for conducting visa interviews of applicants.
• If the Secretary of State can demonstrate no adversarial effects to the United States, the Secretary may modify or enter into agreements with certain countries on a non-reciprocal basis to allow for longer visa validity periods than the periods with such countries that are in existence as of the date of the enactment of this Act.

Participating counts on VoteMatch question 12. Question 12: Pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens Scores: -2=Strongly oppose; -1=Oppose; 0=neutral; 1=Support; 2=Strongly support.
• Topic: Immigration
• Headline: Improve visa process to get more travelers from China (Score: 1)
• Headline 2: Sponsored bill improving visa process to get more travelers (Score: 1)
  
  Participating counts on AmericansElect question 4.
• Headline: Improve visa process to get more travelers from China (Answer: A)
• Headline 2: Sponsored bill improving visa process to get more travelers (Answer: A)
• AmericansElect Quiz Question 4 on Immigration: When you think about illegal immigration, which of the following solutions come closest to your opinion?
  • A: All illegal immigrants should be able to stay in the US legally
  • B: Most illegal immigrants should be able to stay in the US, with some exceptions
  • C: Most illegal immigrants should be deported, with some exceptions
  • D: All illegal immigrants should be deported
  • E: Unsure
  
  
  
• Key for participation codes:
• Sponsorships: p=sponsored; o=co-sponsored; s=signed
• Memberships: c=chair; m=member; e=endorsed; f=profiled; s=scored
• Resolutions: i=introduced; w=wrote; a=adopted
• Cases: w=wrote; j=joined; d=dissented; c=concurred
• Surveys: '+' supports; '-' opposes.