Visa Waiver ProgramLawmakers want more security features to be added to Visa Waiver Program

The recent attacks in Paris have led U.S. lawmakers to propose restrictions on, or adding more security to, the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which allows citizens from thirty-eight countries to travel to the United States for up to ninety days without obtaining a traditional visa. The program, first established in 1986 as part of a comprehensive immigration plan, aimed to boost trade and tourism with European allies. Over the years, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and a few other U.S. allies joined the program.

Concerns now revolve around the threat that some of the roughly 3,000 European nationals who have traveled to Syria to fight alongside Islamic extremist groups, and are now equipped with skills to launch an attack, may return to Europe and then book a flight to the United States to launch an attack. TheWashington Post reports that convicted 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national, boarded a flight to the United States visa-free, as did “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, a British national. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration tightened the VWP security requirements.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), the leading Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is planning to propose new security features to the VWP, though her office has not released details. “The visa waiver program is the Achilles heel of America,” Feinstein said on CNN Sunday earlier this month. “There are stolen travel documents, and they (terrorists) can pick up a false passport, so we have a big problem there.” “They can come back from training, go through a visa waiver country, and come into this country,” she added.

House Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) expressed similar views toward the program when he recently co-sponsored legislation that would require DHS to consider additional steps to improve screening procedures for VWP travelers. A House Republican aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Post that the security threat from Islamic extremists who may use Europe as an entry into the United States, is worrisome. “We do indeed believe there is a vulnerability to the United States,” she said, adding that the process of granting traditional visas is “very thorough,’’ in contrast to the waiver program, which collects limited information from applicants.

Supporters of visa waivers, however, have noted that the traditional visa system has its own vulnerabilities, pointing out that some 9/11 hijackers entered the United States with visas.

Since 2008, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has refused — via the VWP’s online application, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization — more than 26,000 visa waiver requests, some because the applicants showed up on terrorists watch lists, and many because applicants applied using lost or stolen passports. In November, DHS enhanced the program’s security measures by adding additional data fields to the system, including more passport information and requesting applicants’ other names and aliases. DHS also receives electronic passenger manifests from airlines and commercial vessels traveling to the United States. CBP agents check those manifests against several security databases including those of foreign allies.

DHS officials under the Obama and Bush administrations insist the VWP’s current security requirements are effective in stopping potential terrorists from entering the United States. “I’m not a softie on terrorism, but Senator Feinstein is really missing the security measures we built into the program,’’ said Stewart A. Baker, a former DHS assistant secretary for policy in the Bush administration.

In a recent report arguing that visa waivers make Americans more secure, Baker noted that participating countries are required to share information with U.S. authorities about their known terrorists and criminals; which can then be cross-checked against other databases that reveal travel restrictions. In her conversation with CNN, Feinstein noted, “There are no-fly lists and there are terrorist lists, but (terrorists) are in the tens of thousands and even in the millions. So it’s difficult to ferret someone out.”

Nathan A. Sales, a Syracuse University law professor and senior DHS official in the Bush administration, said he thinks that Feinstein is “100 percent right about the threat. Absolutely we face and have faced for years a very significant threat from radicalized populations in Western Europe.’

 “But the solution is not to kill the program, and the solution is not to go back to the old visa-based system of screening passengers,’’ he said. “The solution is to strengthen the security features of the program.’’