[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 118 (Thursday, September 28, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9451-S9453]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VISA WAIVER PERMANENT PROGRAM ACT
Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to H.R.
3767, the visa waiver bill, and that the substitute amendment, on
behalf of Senators Abraham and Kennedy, which is at the desk, be agreed
to, no further amendments or motions be in order, the bill be advanced
to third reading, and passage occur immediately following the passage
vote on S. 2045.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise to support the passage of H.R.
3767, the Visa Waiver Permanent Program Act. This legislation, as
amended, is important not only because it facilitates travel and
tourism in the United States, thereby creating many American jobs, but
also because it benefits American tourists who wish to travel abroad,
since visa requirements are generally waived on a reciprocal basis.
The Visa Waiver Pilot Program authorizes the Attorney General to
waive visa requirements for foreign nationals traveling from certain
designated countries as temporary visitors for business or pleasure.
Aliens from the participating countries complete an admission form
prior to arrival and are admitted to stay for up to 90 days.
The criteria for being designated as a Visa Waiver country are as
follows: First, the country must extend reciprocal visa-free travel for
U.S. citizens. Second, they must have a nonimmigrant refusal rate for
B-1/B-2 visitor visas at U.S. consulates that is low, averaging less
than 2 percent the previous two full fiscal years, with the refusal
rate less than 2.5 percent in either year, or less than 3 percent the
previous full fiscal year. Third, the countries must have or be in the
process of developing a machine-readable passport program. Finally, the
Attorney General must conclude that entry into the Visa Waiver Pilot
Program will not compromise U.S. law enforcement interests.
Countries are designated by the Attorney General in consultation with
the Secretary of State. Nations currently designated as Visa Waiver
participants are Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium,
Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy,
Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand,
Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, United Kingdom, and Uruguay. Greece has been proposed for
participation in the program.
The Visa Waiver Pilot Program was established by law in 1986 and
became effective in 1988, with 8 countries participating for a period
of three years. The program has been considered successful and as such
has been expanded to include 29 participating countries. Since 1986,
Visa Waiver has been reauthorized on 6 different occasions for periods
of one, two, or three years at a time.
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The time has come to make the Visa Waiver Pilot Program permanent
and, in the process, to strengthen further current requirements. That
is the purpose of this bill, which has been amended and worked out
jointly with our House counterparts, in particular House Immigration
Subcommittee Chair Lamar Smith, who I thank for his work on this bill.
This legislation is very close to S. 2376, the Travel, Tourism, and
Jobs Preservation Act, which I introduced earlier this year with
Senators Kennedy, Leahy, DeWine, Jeffords, Akaka, Graham, Grams,
Murkowski, and Inouye, all of whom I thank for their support.
The legislation we are about to pass would accomplish a number of
things.
First, it would make the Visa Waiver Pilot Program permanent. This is
important since no serious disagreement exists that the program should
continue in place for the foreseeable future, and no significant
problems have been raised with the fundamentals of how it has been
operating for the past 14 years. To the contrary, failure to continue
the program would cause enormous staffing problems at U.S. consulates,
which would have to be suddenly increased substantially to resume
issuance of visitor visas. It would also be extremely detrimental to
American travelers, who would most certainly find that, given
reciprocity, they now would be compelled to obtain visas to travel to
Europe and elsewhere. Finally, there are costs to continuing to
reauthorize the program on a short-term rather than a permanent basis,
as it periodically creates considerable uncertainty in the United
States and around the world about what documents travelers planning
their foreign travel have to obtain.
Second, the current requirement that countries be in the process of
developing a program for issuing machine-readable passports will be
replaced with a stricter requirement that all countries in the program
as of My 1, 2000 certify by October 1, 2001 that they will have an
operational machine-readable passport program by 2003 and that new
countries have a machine-readable passport program in place before
becoming eligible for designation as a Visa Waiver country. The bill
also establishes a deadline of October 1, 2007 by which time all
travelers must have machine-readable passports to come to the United
States under Visa Waiver. The judgment of everyone involved in these
issues is that the technology is now sufficient that it is time for
everyone to move from the concept and planning stages to the prompt
implementation of these requirements.
Finally, the legislation, altered from the House-passed version,
would allow for an ``emergency termination'' by the Attorney General,
in consultation with the Secretary of State, of a country's Visa Waiver
designation in an extreme and unusual circumstances. These
circumstances are a ``war (including undeclared war, civil war, or
other military activity on the territory of the program country; a
severe breakdown in law and order affecting a significant portion of
the program country's territory; a severe economic collapse in the
program country; or any other extraordinary even in the program country
that threatens the law enforcement or security interests of the United
States (including the interest in enforcement of the immigration laws
of the United States.)'' Considering the impact of such a termination
on U.S. foreign policy interests and the conduct of the State
Department itself, it is my belief that the Secretary of State would
exert considerable authority in determining whether such an ``emergency
termination'' was warranted.
Mr. President, I urge passage of this legislation.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am proud to join Senator Abraham,
Senator Leahy, and others in cosponsoring the Travel, Tourism and Jobs
Presentation Act. This measure will reauthorize the Visa Waiver Program
and make it permanent.
This visa waiver program allows individuals from designated low risk,
high volume countries to enter the United States as temporary visitors
for business or pleasure without first obtaining a visa. Individuals
visiting the United States under the visa waiver program must complete
an admission form prior to arrival. Their visit may last only ninety
days, with thirty days extensions allowed only in the case of
emergency. Countries participating in the visa waiver program must meet
certain requirements, such as possessing a low non-immigrant refusal
rate for B-1/B-2 visas and utilizing, or currently developing, a
machine readable passport program. Finally, the Attorney General must
determine that each country's participation in the program will not
compromise United States law.
By eliminating the visa requirement, the visa waiver program
facilities international travel and increases the number of visitors
for business and tourism. These effects generate economic growth and
stimulate international trade and commerce. According to the INS, over
17 million visitors to the United States arrived under the visa waiver
program in FY 1998. The program is strongly supported by the State
Department because it reduces consular workloads, allowing the officers
to shift staff and scarce resources to other pressing matters, as well
as reducing costs.
Despite operating efficiently and providing enormous benefit to the
United States economy and the State Department for the past eleven
years, the visa waiver program remains a pilot program. This bill
reauthorizes this important program and makes it permanent.
This legislation also strengthens security precautions under this
program by requiring participating countries to incorporate machine
readable passport programs by October 2003 and nationals from these
countries to possess readable passports by 2008. In addition, the
Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of State, must
continue to evaluate the effect of a new country's inclusion in the
visa waiver program on law enforcement and national security.
Continuing countries in the program are evaluated every five years.
I am especially pleased that Portugal was recently added to the visa
waiver program. Travel between our two countries is significantly
easier because cumbersome paperwork and delays have been eliminated--
obstacles that needlessly prevented Portugese families from visiting
their loved ones here in the United States. Portugal's inclusion in the
Program will benefit thousands of Portugese families in Massachusetts
and around the nation.
Although I strongly support this important bill, I have very serious
concern about the amendment that Senator Helms has offered amending the
Conyers provision of the visa waiver bill. Representative Conyer's
provision simply states that visas that are wrongfully denied based on
race, sex, disability or other unlawful grounds cannot be included in
computations determining a country's admission into the visa waiver
program. The amendment Senator Helms offers pertaining only to the
Conyers provision. It seeks to preclude judicial review of any visa
denying visas, denial of admission to the United States, the
computation of visa refusal rates, or the designation or non-
designation of any country.
I have reluctantly agreed to it because it is surely symbolic and
will have no practical legal effect. Under current law, consular visa
determinations, the denial of admission under the visa waiver program,
or determinations regarding designation of a country into the visa
waiver program are not subject to court review.
Nonetheless, court stripping provisions, whether symbolic or not, are
anathema to our judicial system. I thought that Republicans had learned
the importance of judicial review in the Elian Gonzalez case. Such
provisions allow life-shattering determinations to be made at the
unreviewable discretion of an administrative functionary. The most
fundamental decisions are being made on the basis of a cursory review
of a few pages in a file, or a perfunctory interview, without the
possibility of any appeal or judicial review. This is a recipe for
disastrous mistakes and abuse.
This excellent program has been a pilot program for too long. Its
enormous benefits to the United States economy and the efficiency it
creates for the federal government are obvious. It is time we make this
light of this fact and make this important program permanent. I urge
all of my colleague to support this important bill.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this bill addresses a critically important
issue: the preservation of our visa waiver program. I am a cosponsor of
the Senate
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version of this bill, and I strongly recommend the passage of H.R.
3767.
This legislation will achieve the important goal of making our visa
waiver program permanent. We have had a visa waiver pilot project for
more than a decade, and it has been a tremendous success in allowing
residents of some of our most important allies to travel to the United
States for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa, and in allowing
American citizens to travel to those countries without visas. Countries
must meet a number of requirements to participate in the program,
including having extraordinarily low rates of visa refusals. Of course,
the visa waiver does not affect the need for international travelers to
carry valid passports.
The pilot project expired on April 30, and I had sought passage of S.
2367, which is incorporated into the bill we consider today, before
that expiration date. Indeed, I encouraged the discharge of this bill
from the Judiciary Committee in April so that the Senate could act upon
this highly time-sensitive matter. Unfortunately, this bill was instead
held hostage to other issues. Fortunately, the Administration extended
the program administratively until the end of May, but despite my best
efforts we failed to meet that deadline as well. As a result, the
program was extended until the end of June, but once again the Senate
did not meet the deadline. The Administration then extended the program
through July, sparing thousands of American tourists and international
business travelers tremendous inconvenience and cost during the busy
summer traveling season. Before the August recess, we once again failed
to act on this legislation, forcing the Administration to extend it
again. It is now well past time to end this charade, pass this bill,
and send it back to the House for its final approval.
Rather than simply pass another extension of the pilot program, it is
time to make this program permanent--it has stood the test of time for
well over a decade. In order to address any security concerns about
making the program permanent, the requirements placed upon
participating countries have been tightened. Indeed, countries wishing
to participate in the visa waiver program must meet each of the
following four criteria: the participating country must allow U.S.
citizens to travel without a visa; the country must have a nonimmigrant
refusal rate for B-1/B-2 visitor visas at U.S. consulates that is low,
averaging less than 2 percent the previous two full fiscal years, with
the refusal rate less than 2.5 percent in either year, or less than 3
percent the previous full fiscal year; the country must already possess
or be in the process of developing a machine-readable passport program;
and, the Attorney General must conclude that entry into the Visa Waiver
Pilot Program will not compromise U.S. law enforcement interests.
The visa waiver program provides substantial benefits to both the
American tourism industry and to Americans traveling abroad. I urge the
Senate to make it permanent.
Although I am a strong supporter of the bill, I must speak out
against the amendment that has been inserted into the bill by Senator
Helms. This amendment states that under a certain paragraph of this
bill, no court will have jurisdiction to review any visa refusal based
on race, sex, or disability. It is my understanding that this provision
has no practical effect, since affected foreign nationals would not be
able to bring such a claim in an American court in the first place.
Because it is effectively a dead letter, and because of the importance
of the visa waiver program and other amendments to this bill, I have
chosen not to assert rights and deny unanimous consent. But this
provision is offensive to our legal traditions. I have consistently
opposed attempts to strip courts of authority to resolve immigration
matters, and I am particularly opposed to such attempts where the
stripping is directed specifically toward claims asserting
discrimination. Judicial review is a critical part of American law, and
we should not be impinging upon it--symbolically or otherwise.
Finally, passage of this bill should not be misinterpreted as a
signal that this Congress has dealt fairly or adequately with
immigration issues. There is still so much to do in the little time we
have left, from passing the Latino and Immigrant Fairness Act--to
dealing with the aftereffects of the immigration legislation this
Congress passed in 1996. In particular, I would call again for hearings
on S. 1940, the Refugee Protection Act. This is a bill I introduced
with Senator Brownback and a number of other Senators that would undo
the damage that has been done to our asylum process by the
implementation of expedited removal. I believe it, like so many
immigration issues that have been ignored for the last 21 months,
deserves the attention of this Congress.
The amendment (No. 4276) was agreed to.
(The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under
``Amendments Submitted.'')
The bill (H.R. 3767) was ordered to a third reading and was read the
third time.
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