Speech #970277633

President. I am today offering an original measure which I hope my colleagues will be able to approve. The bill deals with the nonimmigrant visa waiver system which has been promoted by the Department of State for a number of years. I want to stress the fact that this bill is identical to a section of S. 2222. the immigration reform bill passed by the Senate this past summer. The visa waiver provision of S. 2222. which I amended on the Senate floor last August. is a modest proposal to reform and improve our current visa laws and regulations as they pertain to nonimmigrant visitors to the United States. The proposal would permit visitors from certain lowrisk countries to travel to the United States solely on their passports. as is the case with virtually every other nation on Earth. Temporary visas would no longer be required by these people. such as visitors from Western Europe. The administration. and specifically the State Department. strongly support this program. This was demonstrated during testimony on the visa waiver system which was given at a September 22. 1982. hearing before my Subcommittee on Business. Trade. and Tourism. The only reason I am now offering this proposal as a separate piece of legislation is that the immigration reform bill. S. 2222. has apparently died in the House of Representatives. While I greatly regret this outcome. I am hopeful that we might salvage this one very progressive program from that piece of legislation. Our current visa system requires all foreign travelers to obtain a visa from the U.S. Embassy in their country before coming to the United States. Due to the explosive growth of travel to this country over the past decade. this has resulted in our Embassies being flooded with visa applications. The backlog in some Embassies. most notably that in Great Britain. has resulted in delays of 4 to 6 weeks for visa applications to be processed. As you can imagine. this is very disruptive to the travel plans of British tourists and business people. There is also evidence that it is sometimes such a discouraging factor that it results in a loss of foreign tourists. During hearings which I conducted on this issue we received testimony that we could be losing several hundred million dollars in foreign trade income annually because of the negative influence of the visa requirement. The bill which I am offering today would help reduce the visa backlog and would increase our foreign trade income from foreign tourism. The Senate has already passed it once this Congress in the exact form I am offering it in now. Passage of this measure will not be a new step for the 97th Congress. simply a reaffirmation of a position already taken.