18 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • MAY 2014
GOVERNMENT UPDATE
These countries include all the EU and
EEA members, plus Australia, Brunei,
Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South
Korea and Taiwan.
Citizens of Canada and Bermuda do
not require visas to enter the United
States for visit, tourism and temporary
business travel purposes. Also, citizens
of Canada and Bermuda do not require
visas to enter the United States for pur-
poses of travel as a crewmember. Citi-
zens and permanent residents of Mexico
generally must have a nonimmigrant
visa or a Border Crossing Card (also
known as a “Laser Visa”). For ease of
travel, the B-1/B-2 visa and the Border
Crossing Card have been combined into
one document (DSP-150).
A Crewmember Visa (D-1) must be
obtained by persons working on board
vessels or international airlines enter-
ing the United States if the individual
intends to depart the vessel or airliner
(even for short periods) while it is in
the United States. The process for ob-
taining a Crewmember Visa includes all
the requirements for obtaining a regu-
lar nonimmigrant visa. In addition, the
applicant for a Crewmember Visa must
provide evidence of the purpose of the
trip the intent to depart the United States
after the trip, and the ability to pay all
costs of the trip if applicable. Evidence
of family ties in the applicant’s home
country may suffi ce for showing the in-
tent to depart. The Visa Waiver Program
is not applicable to entry as a crewmem-
ber, but (as noted above) citizens of Can-
ada and Bermuda do not require visas to
enter the United States for purposes of
travel as a crewmember.
Commercial airlines have scheduled
routes. In addition, airline crewmem-
bers tend to stay with the same airline for
extended periods. Therefore, crewmem-
bers on foreign airlines that call at U.S.
airports know with certainty that they
will need Crewmember Visas. The same
cannot be said of most merchant vessels.
They have no scheduled routes in most
cases and sometimes change destinations
en route. Many merchant mariners are
employed by the same maritime employ-
er for only one year at a time; long-term
employment contracts are the exception
rather than the rule on the marine sector.
A merchant mariner on a foreign vessel,
in most cases, has no idea whether the
vessel will call in a U.S. port during the
six-month period during which a Crew-
member Visa is valid. Therefore, most
merchant mariners do not go through the
time and expense required to obtain such
a visa.
An example (from the pre-9/11 era)
may illustrate the visa conundrum. A
ship’s offi cer from a visa waiver country
was assigned to join his ship in a U.S.
port. He received the assignment sev-
eral weeks in advance and decided to
visit the United States as a tourist during
the period before he was to join the ship.
After two weeks of touring the U.S., he
joined the ship as scheduled. The U.S.
immigration offi cer for the ship noted his
arrival and promptly informed the mas-
ter that a civil penalty would be assessed
if this particular ship’s offi cer went
ashore for any reason. I was attending
a major shipping conference in Wash-
ington, DC shortly thereafter. During
a Q&A with the Deputy Chief Counsel
of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS), a senior representative of
the shipping company involved related
the above and asked why this individual
presented no threat to the United States
during the two weeks that he toured the
country, but was suddenly a threat when
he boarded his ship. The INS repre-
sentative’s reply was that tourism and
crewmember issues were entirely sepa-
rate programs. In other words, common
sense was and is not applicable.
When cargo (merchandise) from out-
side the United States is bound for un-
lading in the U.S., advance notice of the
particulars concerning the cargo is trans-
mitted to the U.S. Government. Every
cargo is screened. If the cargo is deemed
suspicious, it undergoes scanning and
possibly other individualized examina-
tion. Less than 10% of cargo coming
to the United States is subjected to this
enhanced examination. In other words,
more than 90% of the cargo coming to
the U.S. is deemed to not present a secu-
rity threat and is admitted through rou-
tine processing, based largely upon the
paperwork related to cargo.
The U.S. Government is also provided
advance notice of all crewmembers on
all ships bound for a U.S. port. The ad-
vance notice of arrival must include, for
each crewmember, the individual’s full
name, date of birth, nationality, passport
or mariner document number, position
or duties on the vessel, and where the
crewmember embarked. This informa-
tion is then compared against an exten-
sive database of known and suspected
terrorists and similar undesirables. If the
individual is determined to be a severe
threat, the vessel can be barred from en-
try into U.S. waters while the individual
remains on board. If the threat is deemed
less serious, the vessel must hire armed
guards to keep the individual from de-
parting while the vessel is in U.S. wa-
ters. Even if a crewmember presents no
known threat, he or she may not depart
the vessel (generally may not even come
down the gangway to check draft marks
or to make a telephone call from a land-
line) unless that individual has a U.S.
Crewmember Visa. In other words, un-
like with cargo where a particular piece
of cargo is deemed unthreatening unless
shown otherwise, a crewmember with-
out a U.S. Crewmember Visa is deemed
a threat to the security of the United
States if he or she steps ashore even for a
moment. A passport (even from a coun-
try that participates in the Visa Waiver
Program) is insuffi cient. Likewise, pos-
session of a seafarers’ identity document
issued in accordance with the ILO Sea-
farers’ Identity Documents Convention
will not suffi ce.
For all practical purposes, the United
States treats foreign seafarers as threats
to the security of the U.S. unless and un-
til that seafarer has jumped through vari-
ous bureaucratic hoops. Those hoops are
effectively impossible for most foreign
seafarers to negotiate. Thus, foreign sea-
farers are substantially denied the ability
to take liberty or shore leave when their
ships call in U.S. ports. It is ironic that
the United States Government allows
these same seafarers to navigate large
vessels loaded with oftentimes hazard-
ous cargoes through U.S. waterways and
to call at and unlade/lade in U.S. ports.
The threat potentially presented by these
ships and their cargoes appears far great-
er than that presented by an individual
crewmember without a U.S. Crewmem-
ber Visa, but I am unfortunately getting
logical.
There are a variety of means by which
a terrorist might enter the United States
to wreak havoc. The 9/11 terrorists all
obtained tourist visas and then fl ew to
the U.S. on commercial airliners. A
terrorist could join the numerous eco-
nomic migrants who successfully cross
the southwest border each year. Alter-
natively, a terrorist could walk across
the unguarded border with Canada. If a
terrorist opted to try to enter the United
States as a foreign crewmember, the
process becomes more complex and
uncertain. The individual would have
to undergo at least rudimentary training
so as to qualify as a seafarer. Failure
to have some basic skills will generally
prevent one from getting hired. If hired,
being unskilled will likely lead to quick
dismissal. Assuming that the terror-
ist demonstrates the requisite skills and
gets hired on an ocean-going merchant
vessel, the individual must wait for the
vessel to make a U.S. port call, which is
certainly a long-shot within the six-to-12
month period on a particular vessel. No
self-respecting terrorist or terrorist or-
ganization would select the maritime
option as an effi cient means of getting a
malefactor into the United States.
Approximately 90% of goods import-
ed to the United States from overseas
arrives by ship and, of that, over 95%
arrives on foreign-fl agged ships manned
by foreign crewmembers. If imported
cargoes were treated like foreign crew-
members, the U.S. economy would grind
to a halt. Fortunately, there is a strong
lobby in Washington, DC to ensure that
foreign trade is expedited. There is no
such lobby in Washington for foreign
seafarers.
The Author
Dennis L. Bryant is with Maritime Regu-
latory Consulting, and a regular contribu-
tor to Maritime Reporter & Engineering
News as well as online at MaritimePro-
fessional.com.
t: 1 352 692 5493
e: dennis.l.bryant@gmail.com
Assuming that the terrorist demonstrates the requisite skills and gets hired on an ocean-going merchant vessel, the individual
must wait for the vessel to make a U.S. port call, which is certainly a long-shot within the six-to-12 month period on a particular
vessel. No self-respecting terrorist or terrorist organization would select the maritime option as an ef-
fi cient means of getting a malefactor into the United States.
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