Originally Posted by
B747-437B
The key difference between the US immigration system and that of most other countries is that whereas in most systems the issuance of a visa establishes bonafides for the purpose of admissability (and hence the PoE requires only to establish identity and that the bonafides are still valid), the US system requires that a full independant assesment of bonafides is made at PoE starting from a default assumption of inadmissability.
The US would improve their non-immigrant visa system a lot by simply getting DHS/State to stop getting into a turf war over who has the right to do what. Detailed inspections are best conducted at consular posts (where resources - and time - exist to verify third party references thoroughly) rather than the PoE which is best equipped to simply verify identity and prima facie variations from conditions of entry imposed.
That is a great idea in theory but reality is much different. The consular post does not do a bang up job at verifying information at all. Many times the consular post has foreign nationals working in the system which has caused problems in the past. This idea also doesn't address countries that do not require entry visa's. I would also point out that it is by no means a turf war the system was set up this way for a purpose. The powers that be want the checks and balance that currently exist in the system.
You would also still have the procedures in the entry systems to deal with Custom issues that would not go away either.
FB