House votes to scrutinize travel without visas

Bart Jansen | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption New screening measures for European travelers The House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bill to tighten terrorism screening requirements on travelers coming to the U.S. from Europe.

WASHINGTON – The House voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to require more information sharing among 38 countries where travelers don't need visas to visit the U.S., and to scrutinize those travelers more closely if they have recently traveled to Iraq, Iran, Syria or Sudan.

The House voted 407-19 to approve the bill tightening security with so-called visa-waiver countries including most of Europe. The Senate already has a companion measure and the White House has offered support, although European officials and civil libertarians have voiced concerns.

Under the bill, if a traveler from visa-waiver country has visited one of the "high-risk" countries since March 2011 or has dual-citizenship, an interview would be required at an overseas consulate. Visas from other countries already require an interview.

The bill also would require visa-waiver countries to adopt passports with electronic chips to confirm the traveler’s identity by April 1, in an effort to reduce fraud. Some countries are still phasing in electronic chips for passports that are typically renewed every five to 10 years.

The legislation aims to ensure that countries report lost or stolen passports to Interpol within 24 hours, and to screen all travelers against Interpol databases, to avoid being suspended from the visa-waiver program.

“This will help neutralize the threat from foreign terrorists entering our country," said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest has said the legislation "would actually make the country safer."

The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee is holding a round table meeting Wednesday on similar legislation. The bill from the chairman, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., would also enhance the electronic background checks on travelers and authorize an increase in air marshals who fly armed and undercover to thwart hijackings.

Johnson urged the Appropriations Committee on Tuesday to include the visa bill in spending legislation that Congress must still approve for the entire federal government.

Roger Dow, CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, supported both the House and Senate versions of the visa-waiver legislation to better identify high-risk travelers and make it harder for extremists to falsify their identities.

But European officials have voiced concerns about hindering legitimate travel. David O’Sullivan, the European Union ambassador to the U.S., told USA TODAY on Thursday that visa-waiver members are "really quite concerned about what is happening and fear that this could be extremely counterproductive."

The top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, opposed the legislation for judging travelers based on their home countries rather than their character. The American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and other civil-rights groups oppose the bill, he said.

“History has shown that arbitrary, across-the-board judgments based on broad characteristics such as these do nothing to enhance our security and only cast a cloud of suspicion over entire communities here in our country," Conyers said.

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said journalists, doctors working in refugee camps and human-rights investigators should be allowed to travel to the high-risk countries without facing the later penalty of often lengthy visa applications.

“I think it sends the wrong message," said Ellison, one of two Muslims in the House. “I think our focus should be on behavior, not country of origin."

The visa-waiver program began in 1986 to ease travel between developed countries, including most of Europe and some other countries, such as Australia, Japan and South Korea. About 20 million people visited last year under the program, each for up to 90 days.

But the congressional proposals grew out of concerns that Europeans who trained as warriors or terrorists in the Middle East could travel too easily to the U.S. The concerns grew after the Paris gun-and-bomb attacks Nov. 13 that killed 130 people, and the shooting deaths of 14 people at a holiday party Dec. 2 in San Bernardino, Calif.

“No amount of economic stimulation is worth risking the lives of our constituents," said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

A September report from a House Republican task force found that 30,000 foreign fighters from 100 countries in the Syrian conflict over the Islamic State include 5,000 people with western passports who could easily travel to the U.S.

“It’s a critical component of keeping our homeland safe," said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., who drafted the legislation.

Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., noted that Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th member of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, each traveled to the U.S. under the visa-waiver program.

“The heinous acts of terror and mass murder perpetrated in Paris and San Bernardino demonstrate the alarming strength and reach of ISIS and its allies,” Lance said, using one of the names of the Islamic State fighting in Syria.