Speech #1100019479

Indonesia. at 35.1 percent just exceeds Romania. So this bill will likely set up some real conflicts and create additional problems. The administration has argued that the expansion of the visa waiver countries should be limited to our allies. But what does it mean to be an ally? According to this administration. when we invaded Iraq we counted Colombia with a 33.3 percent visa rejection rate. and Nicaragua. with a 48 percent rejection rate among our allies because they had provided some assistance in war. Do we. in Congress. really want to give the administration unfettered flexibility to allow nationals from any country to travel to the U.S. without a visa. simply because their governments have cooperated with ours? Does that mean that those nationals should be allowed to come to the United States with no advance screening? We can only assume that we will also significantly Increase the number of people who will not leave the United States after their visa expires. In this manner. this bill. if enacted into law. will likely add many thousands. if not millions. to the undocumented or illegal population. Remember. today. 30 to 40 percent of the illegal population are. in fact. visa overstayspeople who come with temporary or visitor visas and do not return to their countries. I believe we should not expand this program without a good hard look at how it will compromise our national security. law enforcement. and immigration goals and without ensuring that safety measures are in place to make the program strong. First. whenever the United States adds new countries to the program. It increases the demand for. and the availability of. fraudulent travel documents. The value of lost. stolen or fraudulent Visa Waiver Program documents is enormous. A person carrying a visa waiver country passport has virtually unlimited access into and out of the United States. No doubt. the expansion of the program will increase the use of fraudulent border documents which are sold on the black market in the tens of thousands: passports. international drivers licenses. and other forms of identification from new visa waiver countries will flood the market. According to the July 2006 GAO report on improving the security of the Visa Waiver Program. visa waiver travel documents have been used by criminals and terrorists seeking to disguise their true Identity. In 2004. more than 15 million people from 27 countries traveled in and out of the United States with no visa. And from January through June 2005a 6month periodthe Department of Homeland Security reported that it confiscated 298 fraudulent or altered passports issued by Visa Waiver Program countries that travelers were attempting to use to enter the United States. And these are just the ones who got caught. In fact. Interpol reports that they have records of more than 12 million stolen and lost travel documents in their database. but that there are 30 to 40 million travel documents have been stolen worldwide. We can extrapolate that tens of thousands of those documents are from visa waiver countries. As the 9/11 Commission report demonstrates. individuals with fraudulent documents pose a far greater threat to our national security than those traveling with no documents at all. For that reason.