When the program was going under similar though less intense scrutiny earlier this year, former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff told a congressional panel that “I firmly believe that any withdrawal or departure from the Visa Waiver Program would be a huge mistake….Constructed in a way to powerfully reduce vulnerabilities in our immigration and travel system, it is my belief that the Visa Waiver Program offers significant benefits to USA national and economic security and should not be pulled back in a time like this but further evaluated for ways that can strengthen our security and the benefits it may yield”. The House voted Thursday to effectively pause the program. “So, I think what you’re going to see happen is, though this veto threat may exist on a piece of legislation, my sense is there is going to be an even broader piece of legislation that is considered by both houses so we can carry out our number one responsibility and that is making sure our citizens are protected”.
Advertisement
If he were not on the U.S. no-fly list, he theoretically could have boarded a plane to the United States without triggering terrorism warnings. “That has lawmakers anxious”. She and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., are proposing legislation that will impose new restrictions, including requiring anyone who has traveled to Iraq or Syria in the previous five years to apply for a visa, whether or not their country is part of the visa waiver program.
The group that lobbies for airlines in Washington, Airlines for America, said that such a ban on visa processing would be harmful to tourists wishing to visit the U.S.
While dozens of governors have announced their opposition to Syrian refugees settling in their states, a few senators are focusing their attention on a program they say poses a bigger threat of allowing terrorists into the country: the visa waiver program.
Americans are granted reciprocal visa-free travel rights to countries in the program, and authorities must share biometric, criminal and other data, including on lost or stolen passports. Most are in Western Europe.
The bill could be a bipartisan answer to the calls for better security after the attacks. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, said after a Wednesday briefing on the terror attacks. The U.S.travel industry doesn’t like the idea.
After it was uncovered that most of the Paris attackers were European nationals, there has been growing concern by members of Congress that America’s current waiver program leaves holes in the nation’s security.
Democrats are eyeing another bill as well: Sen.
“It would discourage people from coming into the United States to do business, is what it would do”, he said. Since the 1980s, residents of many countries no longer have to go through that process.
Advertisement
“It’s time to close this loophole that terrorists could very easily exploit to get guns and use them to kill in this country”, Durbin said. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said at the press conference. But there were still weak links, given the more lax data-gathering and data-sharing by European countries. Americans represent just six percent of that total. Foreign fighters could conceivably use the visa-waiver program to then get to the US. And secondly even if you know that, can you actually track all these individuals? As we’ve known from the French they’ve got hundreds and thousands of individuals they’ve got to worry about.
