BY COLEEN ROWLEY AND GEORGIANNE NIENABER:
All the hyped political angst regarding the possible resettling of a few thousand Syrian refugees stands in stark contrast to the relative lack of congressional concern about the equally, if not more inherently problematic Visa Waiver Program (VWP). This long-standing, historically-proven dangerous, but little understood Department of Homeland Security (DHS)-administered program, allowed 21,231,396 foreign visitors from 38 countries to pass through U.S. ports of entry with minimal to no screening according to 2013 official records (the most recent data published). The numbers should give pause, since visitors admitted each year via the VWP are over 2000 times greater than the “up to 10,000” refugees proposed a few months ago by President Obama for eventual resettlement in the U.S. The number of VWP entrants is nearly 20,000 times greater than the 1,300 Syrians previously allowed into the U.S. since the conflict began over four years ago. The VWP program allows 300 times more foreign visitors into the U.S. than refugees from all countries combined.
Of those entering under the VWP: 293,217 came from Belgium; 1,804,035 from France; and 512,299 from Sweden.[1] Even before the more recent Charlie Hebdo and November 13th attacks in Paris, it was known that the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Sweden were emerging [2] as home bases for Islamic extremists joining ISIL. So do these countries, among others in the waiver program, offer potentially easy access to the United States for some of their increasingly radicalized citizens now supporting known terrorist organizations?
Visa Waiver Program: What we know and don’t know
We suggested last year in the Huffington Post[3] that the United States has a gaping hole in its DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) monitoring. There had been little public discussion of the VWP,[4] a program that thirty-eight countries currently participate in. Participating countries agree to loosen travel restrictions in order to encourage tourism, trade and business travel.
Before traveling to the U.S. by sea or air, VWP participants must fill out an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) form online. It costs a modest $14 and assumes that the applicant is telling the truth about previous visa denials and run-ins with the law.
Since November 2014, new information,[5] including additional passport data, contact information, and potential names or aliases, is required. Once the applicant has the ESTA application completed, he/she needs no other paperwork other than a valid passport from one of the participating countries.
“Upon landing in the U.S.,” according to the optimistic March 2015 testimony [6] of the Director of the Heritage Foundation Steven P. Bucci, “individuals must provide biographic and biometric information that is checked against additional sets of biometric databases controlled by DHS (Automated Biometric Identification System or IDENT) and the FBI (Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System or IAFIS). The individual is once again checked through TECS, the ATS, and the APIS and undergoes additional inspection if necessary. At any point in this process, security officials can prevent an individual from entering the U.S. if they are deemed a security risk or ineligible for travel to the U.S.” Bucci testified before the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, Committee on Homeland Security, in the United States House of Representatives.
Bucci’s description makes it sound like a “robust screening process” but what we don’t know, what is critically missing from his rosy prognosis, is how many of the over 1.1 million terrorist suspects that have made it onto key “terrorist watchlists” can be conclusively identified by biometric data alone, as Bucci’s testimony suggests.
Could it be more likely that the only real barrier to entrance to the United States is the Customs and Border Protection officer at the port of entry, who stamps the passport, with or without a few questions, and with little means of verification? Unless a match comes up with someone entered on the Terrorist Watch List or the no-fly list, the VWP traveler is free to enter for up to 90 days or vanish underground. The Heritage Foundation Director’s testimony included the impressively complicated chart below about how the VWP system is supposed to work, but the chart raises as many questions as it answers. It certainly doesn’t answer the most important questions about the actual effectiveness of the watch listing, checking and flagging process.
The ESTA regulations also have gaping enforcement holes. In 2010 (the latest data available), 364,000 [7] travelers were able to travel under the VWP program without even the minimum verified ESTA approval by airlines, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). No one knows to what extent these passengers presented a security risk or if they left the country after the required 90 day limit on their stays.
Historically, it must be noted that al Qaeda- aligned terrorists have already used the VWP to gain access to soft targets in the U.S. French citizen and later convicted 9-11 participant Zacarias Moussaoui traveled on the VWP before he enrolled in Oklahoma and Minneapolis flight training schools prior to 9-11. Richard Reid, the “Shoebomber,” along with Ahmed Ajaj, also traveled on the VWP. In December 2001 Reid used an Amsterdam-issued British passport to board an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami. In a separate incident, border agents caught Ajaj with bomb making materials and a cheat sheet explaining how to lie to border officials. Ajaj was using a Swedish passport on the VWP.
Ramzi Yousef, one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a co-conspirator in the Bojinka [8] (airline bombing) plot to blow up 11 American jumbo jets, used the VWP on a fraudulent British passport.
Yousef had boarded in Peshawar with a fraudulent British passport, presumably with no U.S. visa, and when he arrived at JFK, presented an Iraqi passport in his own name, with no visa. Yousef was sent to secondary inspections where he requested political asylum; he was released on his own recognizance and went on to finish organizing the WTC bombing.
Despite the fact that both Youssef and Ajaj were caught [9] in 1992 with numerous false passports, Youssef was not even detained, but was released in the U.S., and Ajaj was also later released. These egregious examples all occurred before or shortly after “9-11 changed everything.” Some of these problems were likely remedied, but no one knows if the post 9-11 collection and management of “big data” did not create new snafus.
A 2004 OIG evaluation [10] of the VWP still found significant problems and asked for reforms in 14 areas. One reform involved development of a process to check all Lost and Stolen Passport (LASP) data provided by participating VWP governments against entry and exit data in U.S. systems.
A 2014 report [11], prepared for Congress by the Congressional Research Service, says the 2008 reform mandates, which were required because of the 2004 OIG evaluation, are not complete. DHS has completed the pilot programs, but according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), “DHS cannot reliably commit to when and how the work will be accomplished to deliver a comprehensive exit solution to its almost 300 ports of entry.”
2012 testimony [12] to the GAO by Rebecca Gambler, Acting Director of Homeland Security and Justice, revealed that data is being collected by some VWP countries but not shared by any.
As of January 2011, 18 of the 36 Visa Waiver Program countries had met the PCSC (Preventing Combating Serious Crime) and information-sharing agreement requirement, but the networking modifications and system upgrades required to enable this information sharing to take place have not been completed for any Visa Waiver Program countries.
COMMENTS:
* Since the arrest and conviction of America’s mass-spy, Jonathan Pollard, the 52 pro-Israel Jewish organizations led by AIPAC has been campaigning for allowing Israelis to enter the United States without a visa under the ‘Visa Waiver Program’ is being resisted by American intelligence agencies for the same reason. Why?
On May 6, 2014, ‘Newsweek’ published an article in which its investigative reporter Jeff Stein claimed that Israel spies on the United States more than any US ally does and these activities have reached a ‘terrifying’ level.
Israel’s espionage activities in America are unrivaled and unseemly; counterspies have told members of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, going far beyond activities by other close allies, such as Germany, France, the UK and Japan. A congressional staffer familiar with a briefing last January called the testimony “very sobering…alarming…even terrifying.” Another staffer called it “damaging.”
* A huge concern is the fact that many non-Europeans, read non-White, now hold European passports and the US government foolishly does not racially profile.
Real Europeans entering without a visa was not a problem. We should learn from Israel and the way they deal with entry into their country.
* I’ve been a staunch critic of the “Top Secret America” Total Information Awareness” plan from start, and long before Snowden’s disclosures. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/how-top-secret-america-mi_b_811049.html I wrote this just a couple days after Snowden’s disclosures: http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/11/opinion/rowley-nsa-surveillance/index.html and most recently this in the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/28/bigger-haystack-harder-terrorist-communication-future-attacks
