House passes visa waiver reform bill with strong bipartisan support - The Washington Post - 0 views
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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 currently welcomes roughly 20 million people into the country each year.
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The bill, which was approved on a 407 to 19 vote, would increase information sharing between the United States and the 38 countries whose passport-holders are allowed to visit the country without getting a visa, while also attempting to weed out travelers who have visited certain countries where they may have been radicalized.
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The strong vote in the House could put momentum behind efforts to include changes to the program in the omnibus spending package – a must-pass bill that lawmakers are trying to finalize before government funding expires on Friday
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there are key differences between the House bill and a measure from Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), which has not yet been scheduled for a vote.
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House-passed measure received the backing of the U.S. Travel Association, despite initial concerns that Congress would go too far in tightening the waiver program’s security requirements following the Paris terror attacks.
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The visa waiver program was launched in the 1980s as a way of boosting business travel and tourism to the United States and hundreds of millions of people have taken advantage of the initiative.
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Democrats and Republicans have sparred over stepped-up security proposals made in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. terror attacks.
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While an earlier vote to suspend Syrian and Iraqi refugee admissions “showed the country and this body at its worst,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, “Today’s bill makes sensible improvements to the security of the visa waiver program.”
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The House and Senate bills would require countries participating in the waiver program to issue passports with embedded chips containing biometric data, report information about stolen passports to Interpol and share information about known or suspected terrorists with the United States.
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The House measure also seeks to prevent Syrian and Iraqi nationals, as well as any passport holder of a waiver country who has traveled to Syria, Iraq, Iran or Sudan since March 1, 2011 – the start of the Syrian civil war – from taking advantage of the program. These individuals would instead be required to submit to the traditional visa approval process, which requires an in-person interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate.
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The Senate bill would prevent individuals who traveled to Iraq or Syria from using the program for five years. Both bills give the Department of Homeland Security secretary the authority to take countries out of the waiver system.