Visa Waiver-Vulnerability or Valuable Anti-Terrorist Tool?

GLOBAL SECURITY.org ^ | June 15, 2009 | Jay Carafano

[Cindy]

One of the hottest topics in Washington these days is the debate over where the next major terrorist strike will come from. One avenue of attack cited on several occasions by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has concerns regarding the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). For example, last February the Washington Post reported, "[a]t a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Mueller said that the bureau is expanding its focus beyond al-Qaeda and into splinter groups, radicals who try to enter the country through the visa waiver program and 'home-grown terrorists.' The universe of crime and terrorism stretches out infinitely before us, and we too are working to find what we believe to be out there but cannot always see[.]" VWP allows select countries to have their citizens visit us (and vice versa) for up to 90 days for tourist or business travel without having to get a visa. Mueller and others fear that terrorists might seek a passport from a VWP country to come into the United States. According to recent report by The Heritage Foundation, however, the answer to combating this threat is to expand the program. Reforms in recent years, the study finds, "have made the program a better tool for thwarting terrorist and criminal travel as well as combating violations of U.S. immigration laws (while enhancing safeguards of individual privacy and improving the convenience of international travel)."