Maura Harty

aura Harty, a career Foreign Service officer, has a clear mission: to straighten out the Bureau of Consular Affairs, which issues visas to foreign visitors. That's the bureau that permitted many of the September 11 terrorists to enter the country, despite irregularities in their applications. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, the General Accounting Office and the State Department inspector general blasted the agency for security breaches and inconsistent procedures.

"Visa processing has undergone a profound transformation since September 11," Harty assured a Senate committee in September 2003. Besides improving training, she said, "We've issued 41 standard operating procedures, because I think it's very important for us to put in place standards so that I know . . . that the process is being done the same way in Buenos Aires as in Bangkok as in Bangladesh."

In 2003, she worked with Homeland Security officials to take on the new department's responsibility over nonimmigrant visa policy and oversight, as provided for in the 2001 Homeland Security legislation. State continues to issue the visas, but now Homeland Security sets visa rules, compiles watch lists, and reviews visa applications.

Harty, 44, has long been a high-profile official, serving in a variety of posts in Washington and abroad since joining the Foreign Service in 1981. In 1988, she volunteered to work at the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia-a particularly dangerous post-where she headed the visa section. She was the U.S. ambassador to Paraguay from 1997 to 1999 and then returned to Washington as deputy chief of the Bureau of Consular Affairs. An assignment as executive secretary of the State Department, working closely with Secretary of State Colin Powell, preceded her nomination to head the bureau.

A graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C., Harty grew up in Staten Island, N.Y.