SHOULD THE U.S. ABANDON THE VISA WAIVER PROGRAM?

Powerline Blog ^ | October 7, 2014 | Paul Mirengoff

[right-wing agnostic]

The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) allows citizens of participating foreign countries to enter the U.S. without a visa for 90 days. In exchange for this benefit, participating countries agree to information-sharing and security cooperation with the U.S., along with reciprocal travel privileges for U.S. citizens.

The rise of ISIS has created a heightened threat of foreign terrorists entering the U.S. from European countries that participate in the Visa Waiver Program. Accordingly, some members of Congress are talking about ending the program.

Yesterday the Heritage Foundation took up this question. You can watch the program here.

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff argued that ending the VWP would be a serious mistake. Doing so, he contended, would actually deprive us of information the use of which enhances our ability to keep terrorists out of the country. It would also hurt the U.S. economically due the resulting decline in tourism, and would set back our diplomatic relations with Eastern European nations at a time when we need to present Putin’s Russia with a unified alliance.

[right-wing agnostic]

It's well past time to make ALL our immigration policies more restrictive and have the start promoting the United States' and Americans' interests exclusively. If it were up to me, we'd go to a policy that would make the Immigration Act of 1924 quite liberal by comparison. No foreigner has a right to come to the United States. And I think we should stop protecting other countries' borders with our military and start protecting our borders with our military./rwa

[Yosemitest]

If we had a person who WAS NOT an ENEMY of the United States in the White House
DIRECTING the administration of WHO gets a wavier and WHO DOESN'T,
we wouldn't have this problem!

[Buckeye McFrog]

There will be lamppost space reserved by Michael Chertoff. He stuffed his pockets by forcing us all to go thru airport scanners, in which he has a financial interest.

[Vigilanteman]

The Visa Wavier Program includes mostly, but not entirely, first world countries which aren’t exactly sources of illegal immigrants. It would be useful to periodically revisit which countries belong on it.

[Dr. Ursus]

Good democratic material!

[TurboZamboni]

I bet a spot check, unannounced audit would reveal they know where 5% of those people are after 90 days.

[Gay State Conservative]

One likely consequence of doing away with this program is a tit-for-tat response from some countries...meaning that US citizens would find it more difficult to travel to such countries than they currently do.

That's not meant as an argument against tightening our visa policies...just an observation.