As Republicans squabbled over Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to bar all Muslims from traveling to the United States, the House on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a bill imposing new restrictions on a visa waiver program that now welcomes roughly 20 million people into the country each year. The concern is that most of the Paris attackers were citizens of Belgium and France.
Advertisement
Requires new and modernized passport issuances from VWP countries which include biometric information.
The No. 2 House Democrat, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said he worked closely with GOP leaders on the visa waiver bill and that the measure said it was “reasonable” and “measured” plan.
The Syrian refugee bill, which the administration said was unnecessary because the small number of Syrian refugees are already extensively screened, has not gone anywhere in the Senate and looks unlikely to advance.
US President Barack Obama has warned the members of Congress that he will not pass another short-term spending measure and they must agree to finance the government by Friday or face another potential shut down. The VWP permits citizens of 38 designated countries, mostly in Europe, to travel to the United States for business or tourism for 90 days or less without a visa.
It is estimated that approximately 5,000 Europeans have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS, many of whom are from countries that participate in the Visa Waiver Program and could travel to the US fairly easily. Countries in the visa waiver program would also be required to share information on extremists with the USA and face expulsion from the program if they don’t. She introduced the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 to expand the criteria by which a country may be removed from the program and better ensure terrorists aren’t pouring through our borders and it was voted out of committee in June.
“This will help neutralize the threat from foreign terrorists entering our country”, said House Speaker Paul Ryan. The participants of the visa waiver program should be regularly assessed by the security agencies in the U.S.
In addition, the changes would also require travelers who had visited Iraq, Syria, Iran or Sudan in the last five years to obtain a visa.
“Keeping the American people safe remains the House’s top priority”, he said in a statement.
Advertisement
“This visa waiver program that was allowing people to come into this country with hardly any check, compared to a close to a two-year checking process you’d have to go through to have to qualify as a refugee…”
