Visa Waiver Program Admits 7 New Countries, but at What Cost?
The Department of Homeland Security announced today that it has expanded the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) from 27 to 34 countries. The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, the Republic of Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia have all been added to the list of participating VWP countries. This is obviously good news for citizens of the newly added countries, but it isn't good news for those who feel that DHS has failed to implement certain statutory requirements critical to national security.
Back in September, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report outlining actions that needed to be taken to improve the VWP expansion process and mitigate program risks. The GAO report found that DHS had yet to complete certain actions in the "Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007" to enhance the security of the VWP. Upon reading the report, Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security called a hearing to discuss the report in subcommittee and urged DHS to meet the requirements as outlined in the Act before admitting new countries into the program.
One of the security requirements DHS needed to meet was its Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA). This web-based system provides an additional layer of security by determining the eligibility of VWP travelers before boarding a carrier to the U.S. Last week, DHS certified that the ESTA would be required of all VWP travelers beginning January 12, 2009. This prompted a letter from Senator Feinstein to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. In it, she pointed out that while the ESTA would be required by January 12, there was no system in place to track that travelers were actually registering with the ESTA prior to boarding.
Now that the new countries have officially been added to the Visa Waiver Program, Senator Feinstein has released a statement opposing the expansion and promises to introduce "The Strengthening the Visa Waiver Program to Secure America Act" in the next Congress, a bill to tighten the visa waiver program by increasing oversight of the program.
We'll have to watch and see what happens.
Comments
Those new countries: Czech, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, has got bigger standard of life and security compared to US. Those new countries has bigger democracy than US. They respect the human rights and there is no discrimination in those countries. The ecology, the political system is in better condition than US. The people of those countries enjoy good standard of life, and they are not treatend foe the US security. I bet that no one of those countris wants to immigrate to US. They have better option, because they are part of the European Union. The good thing for US, is the tourists from those countries can bring money to US, and increase the budget of the bad economical crisis of US