Immigration Watch International (2): DHS Adds Qatar to the Visa Waiver Program

Sunday, September 29, 2024

DHS Adds Qatar to the Visa Waiver Program

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and U.S. Department of State Secretary Antony Blinken announced this week that the United States added Qatar to the list of countries whose nationals may enter the United States without first obtaining a visa. Qatar’s admission to the Visa Waiver Program is likely linked to the role the country has played in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas — rather than because it is in the general public’s interest to allow Qataris to enter the United States without first receiving visas.

The Visa Waiver Program, which was first adopted as a pilot program in 1986, but was made permanent in 2000, allows aliens who are citizens or nationals of participating countries to travel to the United States without a visa if they meet certain eligibility requirements. Eligibility for the Visa Waiver Program is limited to aliens who are traveling for business or tourism and only allows these visitors to stay for up to 90 days. Countries must have a nonimmigrant visa refusal rate below 3 percent for the previous fiscal year to be eligible to participate. Participating governments must also make reciprocal travel benefits available to U.S. citizens traveling to their countries. Currently, 41 countries (counting Qatar) participate in the program.

Even when a country is in the Visa Waiver Program, there are some limits. The Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 requires visas for nationals of Visa Waiver countries if they have traveled to or been present in North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen on or after March 1, 2011, (with limited exceptions for travel for diplomatic or military purposes in the service of a VWP country). The act also makes ineligible for visa-free travel those nationals of VWP countries who have traveled to or been present in Cuba on or after January 12, 2021 (with the same limited exceptions as above) and nationals of VWP countries who are also nationals of Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria. (These aliens must make appointments at U.S. embassies or consular offices for standard visa processing.)

Notably, there is no firm limit to the number or rate of visa overstays for citizens or nationals of a country interested in joining the program. While DHS has not published an report showing how many foreign visitors failed to depart the United States within their authorized period of stay since FY 2022, that most recent report showed that even Visa Waiver Program countries may have high rates of visa overstays. Approximately 98,000 visitors who entered under the program overstayed in FY 2022. That year, Spain led all VWP countries with an overstay rate of 5.2 percent, or 28,356 overstays. (In total, more than 850,000 foreign visitors overstayed their authorized stay in FY 2022, which equates to a rate of 3.64 percent, or more than double recent years.)

Moreover, my colleague Jessica Vaughan has explained that because DHS counts admissions rather than individuals to produce the report, DHS is able to report a deceptively low overstay rate that does not reflect the true magnitude of the problem. That is because many individuals who are compliant with visa requirements enter and depart the United States multiple times a year. Individuals who intend to stay in the United States illegally after their authorized periods of stay expire, on the other hand, are more likely to enter the United States just once.

Security Benefits and Costs
Easing the red tape associated with international travel has undoubtedly provided some economic benefits to participating countries in addition to limited national security benefits, such as encouraging countries to raise their document and identification systems standards while also giving the U.S. government a foot in the door to inspect participating countries’ security systems. Nevertheless, the program remains one of the United States’ greatest security vulnerabilities.

Administrations that have expanded the scale of the program tend to overstate the national security benefits associated with wider participation. That is not to say there are not real benefits obtained from wider participation.

https://cis.org/Jacobs/DHS-Adds-Qatar-Visa-Waiver-Program

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Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.

The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:

1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.

2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.

3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.

4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.

5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.

6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.

I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.

Immigration Watch International (2)

Sunday, September 29, 2024

DHS Adds Qatar to the Visa Waiver Program

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