Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Tourism and Economic Development and Transportation, Military Affairs, and Government Operations, to which was referred S.C.R. No. 129 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to urge the President of the United States to secure an agreement to permit visitor visas to be issued to citizens of the People's Republic of China to visit the United States.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism and Hawaii Tourism Authority.

Your Committees find that Chinese nationals face tremendous difficulties in obtaining visas to travel to Hawaii. The application process is found to be demeaning, onerous, costly, and time consuming. As a result, the economy of Hawaii has experienced serious repercussions, including cancelled convention bookings, cancelled training programs for Chinese government officials, and changes to the flight routes between China and Hawaii.

Your Committees further find that while encouraging an increased amount of foreign travel to Hawaii will benefit the State's economy, the increased visitor count will create additional hardships on the already limited infrastructure and resources of the Honolulu International Airport. Visitors arriving on weekends often wait one and one-half hours to be processed through immigration inspectors. With new homeland security measures of photographing and fingerprinting scheduled for implementation within the next six months, the current situation will be exacerbated.

Your Committees expressed concern with the reports of repressed and violated human rights of the citizens of the People's Republic of China, and the recognition of Chinese criminal groups as the most sophisticated heroin trafficking organizations in the world.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Tourism and Economic Development and Transportation, Military Affairs, and Government Operations that are attached to this report, your Committees concur with the intent and purpose of S.C.R. No. 129, as amended herein, and recommend its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.C.R. No. 129, S.D. 1.