Speech #970207454

Mr. President. today I am submitting an amendment to S. 2222. the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1982. Section 213 of this bill contains a provision which would authorize the implementation of a limited. nonimmigrant visa waiver system. The goal of such a system is to facilitate international travel by waiving the visa requirement for foreign travelers to the United States from "low risk" countries. However. in my opinion. the visa waiver system currently provided in S. 2222 is much too narrow to accomplish the goal of effectively facilitating foreign travel to the United States. My amendment would broaden the applicability of the visa waiver program so that it would cover most of our traditional political allies. trading partners. and sources of tourism revenue. which amounted to $12 billion in foreign trade receipts in 1881. Under my amendment. the visa requirement would be waived for those nations having a traditionally low visa application refusal rateunder 2.5 percent annually. In addition. the plan specifies numerous safeguards to insure that there is no increase in the number of undesirable aliens entering the country. The program. designed by the State of Department. is both balanced and workable. The problem with the plan currently in S. 2222 is that its terms are so restrictive that it wold apply to only approximately half a dozen countries. Under my amendment. approximately 28 nations would be covered. inIcuding many of our major allies and trading partners. The longstanding need for a visa waiver system has been welldocumented. The system is outmoded and its burdensome aspects far outweigh any possible benefits. However. in the last few years the need has become more pressing due to the sharp increase in foreign visitors coming to the United States. Our embassies. whose staffs are already overtaxed. face increasing backlogs of visa applications and the situation shows no sign of improving any time soon. The United States is one of the very few nations which still requires foreign travelers to carry a visa in addition to a passport. This means. for instance. that we are forcing British. French. and other Western Euopean travelers to obtain clearance from the American Embassy in their country before they can travel to the United States. The time consuming and cumbersome application process is not only an annoyance. but also discourages travel and therefore reduces our foreign trade income from tourism. For instance. would someone from Western Europe go to the trouble of waiting up to 12 weeks to obtain a visa for discretionary travel to the United States when they could travel virtually anywhere else in the world simply on a valid passport? Commonsense tells us that we are losing thousands of potential visitors every year. This suspicion was confirmed during hearings I chaired last September on the visa waiver issue. As chairman of the Business. Trade and Tourism Subcommittee. I heard testimony from a variety of administration and industry witnesses. Estimates documented in this testimony indicated that the visa waiver program contained in my amendment would generate several hundred million dollars in additional trade revenue annually. If we can reduce the scope of this obstacle to travel. we will increase travel and tourismrelated business. create jobs and increase tax revenues. Because of the many benefits I have outlined. the visa waiver program contained in my amendment has attracted substantial support througout Government and industry. Some of the groups which have endorsed the plan include: Department of State. Department of Justice.