Obama administration officials defended policies for admitting Iraqi refugees into the U.S. at a Senate hearing on preventing terrorists from entering the country.

Programs such as granting special immigrant visas for Iraqis working on behalf of the U.S. government were intended to fulfill a “special responsibility” to these people, Janice Jacobs, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Officials make “every effort to streamline” the visa process while ensuring that those who receive them “do not pose a threat to the security of the United States,” Jacobs said.

Concerns about the program were underscored by the May arrests in Kentucky of two Iraqis who had entered the U.S. through the resettlement program and were charged with conspiring to provide weapons, money and other support to al- Qaeda in Iraq.

Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, urged tougher controls in granting the special immigrant visas. He said he didn’t fault the government for “missing the needle in the haystack, but you need to make the haystack smaller. It’s hard to know who your friends are and who your foes are.”

About 58,000 Iraqi refugees have come to the U.S. since 2007, with about 30,000 still in Iraq who have been approved for resettlement, said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican and her party’s ranking member on the committee.

Screening Process

The State Department has been working with Department of Homeland Security officials for the last six months to improve the security screening process for visa program, Jacobs said. Those efforts have intensified following the arrests, she said.

Rand Beers, a Department of Homeland Security undersecretary, said monitoring of visa holders has made improvements that include use of biometric identification, data sharing among agencies and streamlining the review process for those who overstay visas that don’t allow permanent resettlement in the U.S.

Homeland security officials also are analyzing options for tracking visa holders once they are in the U.S., and the study’s findings will be released later this month, Beers said.

“This is a program which we’ve instituted that is both backward looking and forward looking,” he said.

The hearing was the latest in a series by the committee looking into improvements in domestic security as the 10th anniversary approaches of the Sept. 11th attacks.