House tightens controls on visa-free travel to US

The Visa Waiver Programme (VWP) is available to citizens of 38 countries, largely USA allies and relatively stable developed democracies. McCarthy said the bill was meant to hopes to close potential gaps in the program that could allow would-be terrorists to cross the border from countries that don’t have e-passports, where simply replacing a passport could erase evidence of travel to Iraq or Syria.

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

The terror attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., and Paris have prompted a new emphasis on security but left lawmakers struggling to determine the appropriate response.

Under the new bill, visitors from waiver countries would have to go through the visa process if they had recently been to Iraq, Iran, Syria or Sudan.

President Barack Obama called on Congress to address the visa waiver program during his prime-time address to the nation on Sunday about his administration’s efforts to combat the threat from ISIS. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican in the chamber, said Monday he expected some changes to the visa waiver program would be included in government-spending legislation being negotiated by lawmakers.

The ACLU also wants Congress to remove language that would eliminate visa-waiver privileges for recent travelers to Iraq and Syria such as journalists, scholars, and humanitarian workers, and to institute a two-year sunset on the travel restrictions in the bill. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), which has not yet been scheduled for a vote.

GOP and House Democrats called for all 38 countries who participate in the program to increase the amount of information that is shared between them.

While House Democrats staged a protest over the rejection of their measure to ban individuals on the no-fly list from purchasing guns, Democratic leaders urged their members to back the visa waiver programme.

Farr this evening said the bill “casts too wide a net to be effective”.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., would require any citizen of a visa waiver country who had traveled to Iraq or Syria within five years to apply for a visa, like travelers from non-waiver countries. In the process they delayed by several hours planned votes on a series of bills, including the visa waiver legislation.

Unlike the House bill, the Senate plan would require travelers under the visa waiver program to provide biometric information before traveling to the US and force airlines to provide information on visa-waiver passengers “as soon as practicable” before arriving at a port of entry, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Government legislative analyst Michael Smallberg.

Lawmakers of both parties spoke in favor of the legislation, which is also backed by the White House.

The legislation may end up attached to a sweeping year-end spending bill now being finalized on Capitol Hill.