Visa malfeasance eyed.

A Government Accountability Office investigation of 11 U.S. consulates in six countries found that half of them were not following proper procedures to guard against visa fraud on the part of U.S. officials.

While the number of consulates inspected was small--there are 211 posts charged with issuing roughly 5 million visas per year--the failure to follow procedures designed to thwart corrupt officials from stealing blank forms or abusing the system for financial gain, is a risk to homeland security, the GAO report warned.

The State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security uncovered 28 visa irregularity cases from 2001 to 2004.

"Internal controls make it difficult for an employee to commit visa malfeasance without being detected, but, despite these safeguards, visa malfeasance does occur," the report said. Such criminal activity could permit unqualified individuals, "including those who wish to do our country harm," to enter the United States, the report added.

Six consulates failed to carry out quarterly inventories of the supplies needed to issue visas.

In a response to the report, the State Department said inventories are tracked on a daily basis, and that staff sometimes skipped the quarterly accounting because it was redundant.

State also needs to speed up development of automated software that can spot anomalies in visa issuance, the report said.

However, some of the difficulties in prosecuting corrupt consular officials cannot be overcome with software alone, the report said. Diplomatic security officers cannot obtain search warrants for overseas offices or residences. Obtaining financial records from foreign banks is also difficult. Only 10 of the 28 malfeasance cases detected resulted in successful prosecutions. Changing the rules for search warrants would require an act of Congress, the report noted.