House votes overwhelmingly
to restrict visa waivers for travelers, 12/8/15, by Cristina Marcos, The Hill
The House voted Tuesday to restrict
a program that allows people from some countries to come to the U.S. without a
visa, responding to growing fears about the threat of terrorism from overseas.
Lawmakers easily approved the
measure in a bipartisan, 407-19 vote. All 19 votes against the measure were
from Democrats.
The waiver program allows tourists
from 38 countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain and France, to stay in
the U.S. for up to 90 days without a visa. About 20 million tourists use the
program each year.
Concerns about the program’s
security have spiked following reports that all of the identified attackers in
Paris were European nationals. Tourists who use the visa waiver program are
already screened against American security databases, but are subject to less
restrictive checks than other travelers.
“We simply cannot give people from
other countries special access to our country if we don’t have all of the
information that we absolutely need to ensure that they are not a threat to
national security,” said Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.), the bill’s author.
Under the legislation, citizens from
countries that qualify for the program would be denied visa-free entry to the
U.S. if they have visited Iraq, Syria or other countries deemed to be terror
hotspots in the last five years, or if they are citizens of those countries.
Those individuals would instead have to pass through a more stringent security
process.
The measure would further direct the
Department of Homeland Security to remove a country from the visa waiver
program if it doesn’t share counterterrorism data with the U.S. It would also
require eligible countries to screen travelers against INTERPOL databases for
links to criminal activity.
Provisions of the bill are expected
to be included in a catchall government spending measure known as the omnibus
that lawmakers are racing to finish this week. Negotiators are still trying to
reach an agreement on policy riders to be included in the legislation,
including a measure to restrict refugee resettlement. Government funding is
slated to run out on Friday.
The House vote comes after the Obama
administration last week moved to expand security checks for the visa-waiver program, such
as determining whether travelers had visited countries with significant terror
activity.
President Obama called on Congress
to go even further to secure the program during his prime time Oval Office
address on Sunday night.
“We should put in place stronger
screening for those who come to America without a visa so that we can take a
hard look at whether they’ve traveled to warzones. And we’re working with
members of both parties in Congress to do exactly that,” Obama said.
Tuesday’s vote stands in
contrast to a more partisan bill the House passed last month that would enhance
security requirements for refugees from Iraq or Syria seeking asylum in the
United States.
Liberal Democrats denounced that
bill, saying America should not turn its back on the world's most vulnerable
people.
“While the refugee bill showed our
country and this body at its worst, today’s bill makes sensible improvements to
the security of the visa waiver program,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren
(D-Calif.)
Comments
Is that
it ? Is that all Congress is going to do
? What about radicalized Muslim US
citizens and their kids ? What about
banning ISIS refugees from the US and Europe ? What about sending all
“refugees” to camps in Muslim countries like Jordan ?
Paul
Ryan’s half-baked solutions do not represent ‘American Values or Republican
Values’. That isn’t who we are.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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