US agency opposes blocking short-term visitors
WASHINGTON (AP) – Stopping foreigners from entering the United States for short visits without visas could harm tourism, business and diplomatic relations and still not keep terrorists out, a congressional report said Friday.
While supported by some in law enforcement and in Congress in the name of national security, such a policy would burden US missions overseas with new visa applications and cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO).
It also could chill US relations with members of the fragile international coalition providing military and other support in the war on terror.
“Participating countries may see their loss of visa waiver status as a sign that the United States views them as untrustworthy – more as security risks than as allies,” the report said.
The visa waiver programme, passed in 1986 and renewed two years ago, was created to lighten the workload on State Department employees who review visa applications by allowing some residents of 28 “low-risk” countries to enter the United States without a visa for up to 90 days. Included in the list of countries are those that have secure policies on the issuance of passports, for example Britain, France and Japan.
The attorney-general can remove a country from the list. Argentina was removed earlier this year, for example, because its economic crisis may have prompted a flood of illegal immigration.
Jamaica, while not on the list, raises similar immigration concerns for the US. Every year, hundreds of thousands of visa applications are submitted by Jamaicans, many of whom want to escape the island’s harsh economic conditions.
After the September 11 attacks, lawmakers and some in the law enforcement community have questioned whether the waiver programme should be eliminated because it could be exploited by terrorists who enter the country under it and then disappear.
Representative Christopher Shays, a Republican from Connecticut, the chairman of the House National Security Subcommittee that commissioned the GAO study, criticised it for basing its conclusions on too small a sample of countries and urged more research be done.
“The secretary of homeland security is going to have to make a decision on whether to continue the visa waiver programme,” said Betsy Hawkings, Shays’ chief of staff. “But without studies done on more than five of the 28 countries, he’s got incomplete information.”
The Justice Department said it’s possible that weaknesses in the waiver programme might be better addressed by changing the way border inspectors check people seeking to enter.
People travelling to the United States under the programme must, among other things:
. Have a valid passport issued by the participating country and be a national of that country.
. Be seeking entry for 90 days or less.
. Have their identity checked at the border against a database of aliens prohibited from entering.
. Possess a round-trip ticket if entering by air or sea, or proof of financial solvency and a residence abroad if entering by land.
The report said the Justice Department has not shown evidence that terrorists and other criminals have exploited the act to enter the United States. Anecdotal information indicates that criminals, including those connected to the September 11 hijackings, entered the country both with and without visas, the GAO said.
Tourism could fall victim to any elimination of the waiver programme, the study said.
Between 1991 and 2000, the report said, tourism from visa waiver countries accounted for more than half of the overseas visitor market in terms of dollars spent and number of travellers. The Commerce Department earlier this year estimated that eliminating the waiver programme could cost the economy $28 billion in tourism sales from 2003 to 2007, the GAO said.
Eliminating the waiver programme would also require more State Department personnel to handle the resulting increase in visa applications. If the individuals now travelling under the visa waiver programme were required to obtain visas, 14 million more applications would be submitted. The additional workload could cost the government between $810 million and $1.3 billion per year, the GAO estimated.