House passes bill to restrict visa-free travel
PRESIDENT Barack Obama somberly addressed the nation from the Oval Office on Sunday, Dec. 6, outlining his administration’s strategy for fighting the war on terror, namely, terrorist groups like the Islamic State.
“Tonight, I want to talk with you about this tragedy, the broader threat of terrorism, and how we can keep our country safe,” Obama said in a primetime address. “Our nation has been at war with terrorists since al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11. In the process, we’ve hardened our defenses.”
The president first acknowledged the hard work and professionalism of the military and armed forces, law enforcement, and airport security. “Our military and counterterrorism professionals have relentlessly pursued terrorist networks overseas — disrupting safe havens in several different countries, killing Osama bin Laden, and decimating al Qaeda’s leadership.”
Obama’s address to the country came just days after the shooting rampage on Wednesday, Dec. 2 in San Bernardino, California, which left 14 people at the Inland Regional Center dead, and 21 injured. The terrorists–a Muslim husband and wife, who were killed in a shootout with police hours after the attack–were “radicalized, embracing a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West.”
“We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are…part of a cult of death, and they account for a tiny fraction of more than a billion Muslims around the world,” Obama said, emphasizing that the US is not involved in a war on religion. “We must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.”
In his speech, the president also laid out his administration’s strategy for combating terror: deploying Special Operations Forces, sending proper training and equipment to freedom fighters in Iraq and Syria, launching heavy airstrikes on oil tankers (which provide extremist groups with much of their revenue), high intelligence-sharing with European allies, and Secretary of State John Kerry’s “Vienna process” plan to halt the civil war in Syria, so that all parties can focus on a common enemy, according to the New York Times.
“The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it. We will destroy ISIL and any other organization that tries to harm us. Our success won’t depend on tough talk, or abandoning our values, or giving into fear. That’s what groups like ISIL are hoping for. Instead, we will prevail by being strong and smart, resilient and relentless, and by drawing upon every aspect of American power,” Obama said.
In an impassioned plea, he urged Congress’ action to ensure that any potential suspects who are on the nation’s no-fly list are not able to buy a gun.
“What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon? This is a matter of national security,” he stated. “We need to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones that were used in San Bernardino.”
A day after the president’s speech, the FBI also announced that the attackers were radicalized, and “had been for quite some time,” according to ABC News. Officials had found a stockpile of assault weapons, ammunition, and pipe bombs in their Redlands home. The FBI has not determined whether the attack was directed by a terrorist organization overseas, but are investigating it as an act of terrorism.
“We do not see any evidence so far of a plot outside the continental US,” said David Bowdich, the assistant director of the Los Angeles bureau of the FBI. “We may find it someday, we may not, we don’t know. But right now we’re looking at these two individuals and beginning to focus on building it out from there. We will get to the bottom of this. We don’t know everything yet, but we will leave no stone unturned.”
Congress votes on restrictions for visa-free travel
In his remarks, Obama also promised for stronger security screenings.
Separately, some lawmakers have discussed looking at the K-1 fiancée visa program, through which the female shooter Tashfeen Malik, came through US borders from Saudi Arabia after her marriage to Syed Rizwan Farook, the other shooter in the San Bernardino attacks.
In a rare agreement, Congress and the White House are ready to combat terrorism with legislation that would slap on new, more secure travel restrictions on foreign visitors to the US who have recently been to Syria, Iraq, Iran or the Sudan.
On Tuesday night, Dec. 5, the House overwhelmingly passed legislation to overhaul the federal visa waiver program, barring those who have visited those countries in the last five years from traveling to the US without a visa.
The 407 to 19 vote had wide bipartisan support and White House backing, said The Associated Press.
Though the polls have shown a majority of Americans who also oppose the plan, the funding measure is tangled in other battles, said the LA Times.
The House measure, which was hammered out in private talks between the administration and leaders of Congress following the attacks in Paris last month, would ban visa-free entry of citizens from 38 countries, including most of Europe and several US allies in Asia, if they report on a travel application that they have visited any of the four targeted countries since 2011.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would also gather more detailed information from travelers about their past visits to countries like Syria and Iraq.
“This will help neutralize the threat from foreign terrorists entering our country,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, also emphasizing that there was no “religious test” in the House’s final vote. “Freedom of religion is a fundamental constitutional principle. It’s a founding principle of this country.”
The program, endorsed by top House Democrats, allowed eligible citizens of the 38 approved countries–including Great Britain, Belgium and France–to travel into the States without first obtaining a visa. Instead, this new measure would require people from those countries to apply for entry to the US through the traditional visa process.
The measure would also require all 38 countries that participate in the visa-waiver program to share traveler information with the US. In the past, some countries had been slow to provide such vital information, some officials complained. Under the bill, those countries could face elimination from the program if they fail to comply.
Though the polls have shown a majority of Americans who also oppose the plan, the funding measure is tangled in other battles, said LA Times. Republican contender Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a main rival of front-runner Donald Trump, has called for blocking all refugees from Syria and other countries where terrorists operate from entering the US for the next three years. Cruz vowed to try to attach is refugee ban to the broader House measure.
Officials such as CIA Director John Brennan to Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee and California Democrat Sen. Diane Feinstein, the committee’s ranking member, are more worried that the visa waiver program is a greater concern in that it makes it much harder to keep track of potential terrorists and prevent attacks in the US.
One potentially huge roadblock to passage of the visa-waiver bill remains in the Senate, where Sen. Feinstein has pushed for even tougher restrictions added to the program.
Under Feinstein’s proposal, which was drafted with Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), first-time visitors who apply through the visa-waiver program must undergo biometric fingerprint and photograph screening at US embassies or consulates in their home countries, rather than after they arrive in the US.
A major difference between the House and Senate versions of the bill concerns which countries are affected. While the House bill also blocks visa-free travel for those who admit to visiting Iran and Sudan, with several exceptions for citizens involved with government or the military, Feinstein’s bill in the Senate restricts those who have gone to Syria and Iraq, and gives the DHS the ability to add countries to the restricted list, with no exceptions for any travelers.
“Sen. Feinstein is encouraged by the consensus on strengthening the security of the visa-waiver program and will work with her colleagues to get something signed into law,” said a Feinstein aide.
Critics of the Senate proposal say that overseas facilities are not staffed up to handle the expected onslaught of thousands of visitors who would need extra prescreening. Some also argue that the new restrictions might create problems for innocent citizens, such as Iranian or Iraqi immigrants who have settled in Europe and visited their home countries in recent years.
The American Civil Liberties Union, arguing that the measure passed Tuesday was too arbitrary and does not make exceptions for aid workers and dual citizens, said in a letter to lawmakers: “We urge Congress to exercise caution and to avoid passing legislation that would broadly scapegoat groups based on nationality, and would fan the flames of discriminatory exclusion, both here and abroad.”
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee also raised concerns, pointing to another feature of the bill that it found troubling: the exclusion from the visa waiver program of people who have traveled to Iraq or Syria since March 2011, when the conflict in Syria began. That provision could target people who do humanitarian work in those countries, the group said, according to Politico.
“There are other avenues to strengthen security other than placing blanket exclusion on all countries designated under this bill and groups of people based on their national origin,” the group stated.
As the Obama administration works to address such concerns, the DHS will also look at pilot programs for collecting biometric information, such as travelers’ fingerprints, the White House said in a statement.
The visa-waiver changes are among the most substantial ever made to the 30-year-old program.
A task force in the House of Representatives is meeting to discuss details of the program, and hopes to craft legislation to pass “by the end of the year,” said House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last week.
“The House bill’s more limited approach [would bring] thoughtful solutions that will enhance America’s security,” said US Travel Assn. President Roger Dow in a statement, also warning against “knee-jerk restrictions that could harm tourism to the US.”
Around 20 million visitors a year–roughly 59 percent of all overseas visitors–have traveled on the current waiver program, which grants 90-day stays in the US, and is vital to America’s tourism economy, says the travel association.
The visa-waiver program measure will now move to the Senate, and is likely to be attached to a must-pass spending bill to fund federal operations in Congress. Despite unresolved bipartisan differences, the Senate is expected to have approved the bill by the end of the week to avoid a government shutdown.
