Summary of Joint Meeting of User Facility Administrators and User Executive Committee Chairs held at Brookhaven National Laboratory October 27-28, 2003 The first of a planned annual event involving the user facility administrators and members of user executive committees for all DOE scientific user facilities was organized by Susan White-DePace and Mike Siverts of BNL. The topic of discussion was foreign visitors and assignments. Representatives from various Washington, D.C. offices attended and gave presentations: Bill Nay from the Office of Security in the Office of Science, Edward Ramotowski from the Department of State, Ramona McGee and Claudia Salem from the Department of Homeland Security, James Griffin from the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Irving Lerch from the American Physical Society International Office. There were representatives from many of the national labs: Argonne National Lab, Brookhaven National Lab, Canadian Light Source, Fermi National Accelerator Lab, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Los Alamos National Lab, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Oak Ridge National Lab, Pacific Northwest National Lab, Spallation Neutron Source, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Sandia National Lab and Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. Fermilab was represented by members of the Users Executive Committee, Leslie Groer (Columbia University) and William Trischuck (University of Toronto). The main focus of the discussions were the issues in admitting foreign students and scientists into the US to participate in scientific ventures at the DOE national laboratories particularly with the new security plans that all arms of the government are charged with upholding. There is great concern over the length of time for visa issuances, the security checks that need to be applied at all levels of foreign visits and what information the national labs are responsible for collecting and tracking. These procedures have caused problems for hosting conferences in the US, allowing foreigners resident in the US to travel abroad, delayed or prevented foreign scientists and students from coming to the US or getting on to the national user facility sites. International collaboration is seriously affected by these issues. The overall aim of the meeting was to improve understanding of the current issues that the national labs face for the facility administrators and the users executive committees, but also to provide a forum for concerns to be raised with the governmental departments. All presentations were followed by extensive question and answer periods and all the governmental representatives made contact information available for further follow up. All the departments of the US government recognize the scientific and economic benefits that foreign involvement has fostered and want to continue to encourage this involvement. They believe there should be no conflict between good science and good security. More communication and sharing of information technologies among the various departments will be necessary to ease many of the current issues. The Department of State (DOS) has been tasked with moving the borders of the US to the embassies and consulates as the first point of contact, but is committed to a policy of "secure borders AND open doors". Many of the most current pressing issues are due to changes in the implementation of more secure procedures before issuing visas sometimes leading to greatly increased time for processing. The DOS is a clearing house for all the other agencies concerned with security checks, but cannot by itself expedite all the processing. The newly formed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) controls border entry and residence in the US. A new memorandum of understanding between the DOS and DHS commits both agencies to improving intra- and inter-departmental procedures and communication and to work together on security policies. Finally the DOE is tasked with ensuring that people entering national laboratory sites are in compliance with the US immigration code and that the user facilities adhere to the security regimen required by the administration. Many of the current procedures that DOE has in place are in response to directives from the administration. In particular, there is a revised draft order DOE 142.X which is out for revision and comments that was discussed extensively at the meeting. The final order is expected early in the new year. The national labs are currently operating under interim guidance from the secretary. Allowing the various labs to tailor access to the site and on-site was considered crucial as there is a range of security concerns depending on the particular facility. Security concerns now include sensitive "dual-use" technologies. Audits and inspections from the various governmental agencies (DOE, General Accounting Office, Inspector General Survey) are also here to stay to provide oversight. The meeting concluded with a lengthy discussion and formulation of plans on how to increase the communication between the user facility administrators and user executive committees from the various labs and how to help raise these serious issues within the DOE and in the rest of the US government. There is already increased collaboration between some DOE user facilities, particularly in the light sources and neutron scattering sites. The users offices and executive committees can help individuals by ensuring they have the needed information in time to have visas processed and apply in the correct visa categories. There will be constraints on both sides; protecting the US national interests but still fostering scientific progress and interaction. Legislation is not the only issue as many times it is the implementation of the regulations were departmental discretion comes in and has the greatest effect. Letters to the department secretaries signed by representatives from all the DOE user facilities were felt to be very effective in getting the message across and will be continued in the future. Individual lobbying efforts were also strongly encouraged.