Time to do away with visa waiver program

In January, California Sen. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) called the visa waiver program in which we allow people from 40 countries to come to the U.S. without a formal travel visa the “Achilles’ heel of America.”

With an estimated 4,000 European nationals having traveled to Syria and/or Iraq in recent years, suspected of being trained militarily or actually fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and with those suspects able to travel to the United States without a visas, alarms are being raised in Washington, suggesting that the current visa waiver program be curtailed, limited or canceled altogether.

{mosads}Feinstein is not alone. Another Democrat, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, is calling for suspension of the program. They join Republican Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (where Feinstein is the ranking Democrat), in casting wary eyes on a program that could allow terrorists to enter the U.S. without ever being interviewed by anyone other than an airline employee looking at a picture ID and a visa-less passport.

Compare that lax system to what this writer experienced earlier this year when I enplaned for Turkey and Azerbaijan, countries either allied with the U.S. (Turkey is in NATO) or friendly with the U.S. like no other Muslim countries in the world.  As I was not leaving Istanbul Atatürk Airport, no visa was necessary for Turkey, but I couldn’t enter the airplane without my Azerbaijan visa being checked by airline officials. A visa for my visit to Azerbaijan was issued by its general consul in Los Angeles and was checked every time it was requested by either airline officials, Azerbaijani government officials or my hotel. From consular officials in the United States to hotel clerks, my visa was checked many times.

Compare that to a European visitor to the United States who simply buys an airline ticket, boards a plane and steps off in New York and shows his passport to an officer whose only reference points are the expiration date of the passport and a photo. No visa; no interview in their home country. Just a glance at a passport photo, at a date and a question: “What is the purpose of your visit to the United States?”

Is that enough? No.

Congress should pass new rules doing away with the visa waiver program. A good start would require visas from all countries in Africa, Europe or Asia, including the Middle East. Each visitor must be vetted beyond question. This would apply to student visas as well. Of particular interest would be young military age males from countries with significant Muslim populations. Would any of the 9/11 terrorists have been able to pass better vetting?

That, of course, would be profiling. That would be necessary, one thinks, because with very few exceptions, most terrorists are men of military age. Would that be illegal? No, because no foreigner has American legal rights until he or she is actually in the United States, as per numerous Supreme Court decisions. Once here, profiling is legally frowned upon. But overseas, no.

How does this proposal fit in with post-Paris heightened alert comments? Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) suggests a slowdown of Syrian refugee admittance.

Rationale for such a slowdown is in Honduras, where six Syrian men were arrested for trying to enter direct flights to the United States using false Greek passports. Greece is one of the 40 countries in the visa waiver program. Is poverty-stricken Honduras the singular line of defense we have against potential terrorists sneaking into the country?

The House of Representatives passed legislation calling for a slowdown of the president’s announced admittance of 10,000 Syrian refugees by a lopsided bipartisan majority consisting of 242 Republicans and 47 Democrats. Will the Senate vote for that legislation? If so, will the president veto it, as he says he will? With polling showing majority support for tightening or suspending Syrian refugee entrance into the U.S., will the president continue his marginal fight for something rejected by the American people? Will he expose his Democratic Party to defeat at the 2016 polls over this issue?

A suggested compromise: After initial refugee interviews, why doesn’t the Obama administration do preliminary interviews in Europe, then transport those interviewees to Guantanamo for more detailed interviews? Once the people pass those three levels of interviews then, only then could they set foot on U.S. soil. If the administration did this, would there be any legitimate protests to their efforts? Would the president and his party continue to be on the political defense?

Would the prospects of a large vote against Democrats in 2016 motivate the president to back down and compromise?

Contreras formerly wrote for the New American News Service of The New York Times Syndicate.