Local House members support tighter controls on visa-free travel to US

Established in 1986, the program makes it easier for foreign tourists to visit the US for up to 90 days, by allowing them to bypass obtaining a visa.

The House voted 407 to 19 in support of the proposed change to visa-free travel.

The legislation aims to ensure that countries report lost or stolen passports to Interpol within 24 hours, and to screen all travelers against Interpol databases, to avoid being suspended from the visa-waiver program.

New Visa Waiver bill requires visitors from waiver countries to go through the visa process if they had recently been to Iraq, Iran, Syria or Sudan.

The passage come weeks after the House approved a more controversial bill last month that would make it harder for the U.S.to accept refugees fleeing the conflicts in Iraq and Syria.

However, the House bill is much different than its Senate version, which was authored by Senators Dianne Feinstein (Democrat from California) and Jeff Flake (Republican from Arizona).

House Democrats staged a protest Tuesday over a recent rejection of their measure to ban those on the no-fly list from buying guns, forcing a series of floor votes to call attention to the issue and delaying the vote on the waiver program.

However, Kevin McCarthy, the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, highlighted the lawmakers’ concerns and said some of the Paris terrorists with European Union passports could have easily travelled to the US. If any of the 38 countries fail to share counterterrorism information with the US, the Department of Homeland Security would be required to terminate that country from the program. But the program has been used on at least a few occasions in the past by terrorist plotters, including Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” who attempted to ignite a bomb while flying from Paris to Miami in December 2001.

“Many terrorist recruits and sympathizers who traveled to join ISIS have passports from countries that receive visa waivers and do not now need a visa to enter the United States”, said Thornberry.

From October of next year, each partner country will have to guarantee and verify that it can validate machine-readable and e-passports at every port of entry or it will be removed from the programme until such time as it does. “We must act now”, Miller urged.

“My sense is that most Democrats will take a look at this legislation and probably support it”, said Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

The US travel industry is watching the developments on Capital Hill closely.