Last night, I spoke at length on the House floor about the need to suspend the Visa Waiver program until secure technology is in place to ensure we aren’t letting terrorists into America under the cloak of this program.  Currently, the Visa Waiver program allows citizens from 27 countries – from Japan to France – to enter the U.S. without a visa.  This widely opens the door for terrorist to enter our county, and in fact we know they are using this program.  Just take a look at some of the known terrorists that have entered the U.S. through the Visa Waiver program:

I have introduced legislation in the House to suspend the Visa Waiver program until high-tech security measures are in place to check the terrorist and criminal background of everyone using the program. To read more about my legislation, click HERE.  Below is one important security feature that hasn’t been universally adopted: tamper-proof passports. Many Visa Waiver countries do not yet have passports that are secure. 

If you want to understand the critical nature of this issue, just read these quotes from an Associated Press article last Friday:

“Al-Qaida is stepping up its efforts to sneak terror operatives into the United States and has acquired most of the capabilities it needs to strike here, according to a new U.S. intelligence assessment…”

“The group will bolster its efforts to position operatives inside U.S. borders… U.S. officials have expressed concern about the ease with which people can enter the United States through Europe because of a program that allows most Europeans to enter without visas.”

The time to act is now. I’ll post the video of my speech HERE shortly, so check back this afternoon.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 12:27 pm and is filed under 11th Congressional District, Defense , Homeland Security, Immigration and Border Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.