In light of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, Vice-Chair of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), says that the U.S. should take extra precautions and temporarily suspend the visa waiver program with Europe.
The Paris attacks have prompted many governors and lawmakers to ask the Obama administration to halt the refugee resettlement program, but Rep. Gabbard believes the visa waiver program also poses a threat to American national security.
The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) encompasses 38 European and Asian countries where travelers from those countries can enter the U.S. without a visa. As Syrian refugees flood these countries it could make this program a target for terrorists seeking to enter the United States.
“It could just be a matter of hours, before someone travels through these different borders, someone who’s become a foreign fighter, who’s been fighting in Syria, and ends up here on the United States soil,” said Rep. Gabbard during a CNN interview.
“We’ve got a visa waiver program that really does not address the vulnerability of the open and porous borders between Syria and Turkey, and that — we’ve seen already how many foreign fighters from across Europe are able to travel through those borders… So, we need to temporarily suspend this visa waiver program until the intelligence community gets a handle on this, and exactly how large it is, and what’s going on,” she continued.
She noted that, “there are limitations to what the intelligence community can do” and recommended that every person entering the U.S. should go through the normal visa application process.
Read more on this story at Breitbart.com.
