Speech #CREC-2017-06-08-pt1-PgS3349-2_t31

We also have a lot of things we can do as a Congress to make a difference in how people travel and where they travel. We have a role to play in promoting the United States as a travel destination and in helping our State and local tourism economies be a part of that travel. The Visa Waiver Program is sometimes questioned by some of our colleagues who say anybody can get on a plane in any of these visa waiver countries, and we particularly hear that when something bad has just happened in 1 of those 38 countries--Great Britain, France, or Germany. We hear: Anybody could come here because they don't have to go to the U.S. Embassy and get a visa. Except that is not how it works. That is not how the Visa Waiver Program works at all now. It does enable citizens of the 38 countries that we include to travel here for tourism and business for 90 days or less without the need to obtain a specific visa. By the way, in return, Americans go to those 38 countries without having to go to the Embassy of that country and get a visa and have an interview that allows them to travel there. So that is both ways. Most importantly from our perspective, as to people who are coming here, the program has a lot of security built into it. For all the travelers who come, the Visa Waiver Program is administered by the Department of Homeland Security. It works in consultation with the State Department. Visa waivers use a risk-based, multilayered approach to detect and prevent terrorists, criminals, and other bad actors from traveling here. If you have been in some country lately that we don't think you should have been in, if you have a history of travel back and forth to countries and we have had bad experiences with people who have been in those countries, not only do you not get a waiver but you are in for a much more extensive interview than if we were trying to interview everybody from all of those 38 visa waiver countries who wants to come to the United States. The President announced about 4 months ago that we were going to have a more extensive visa process in countries that need a visa, but that also can be a more extensive visa process in countries that have visa waivers, if someone requires more vetting. If someone does not want to submit to additional vetting, then they don't have to come to the United States of America. Those kinds of questions are easily answered There are comprehensive vetting programs for individuals prior to the time they can get here--as well as when they get here--if they are in that visa waiver structure. So visa waiver works. I think the visa program is working now with more extensive vetting than we have had in the past. The program requires participants to have an electronic passport that has a chip in that passport that makes it virtually impossible to suggest that you are somebody or to try to pretend that you are somebody who you are not. The passport is much more secure than it used to be--both our passports and passports from those countries. In 2015, I worked with a bipartisan group of our colleagues to reform and improve this program and to secure that its robust security protocols would work as intended. We were also able to remove visa waiver eligibility for nationals of participating countries who have visited a country with a terrorism nexus, and for foreigners who participate who are originally from countries that may pose a terrorist threat. There are ways to screen that process that Americans should feel secure about. Frankly, it is a process that is getting better all the time.