USA administration backs bill tightening visa-free travel

The overwhelming vote in favor of the bill comes after the House easily voted to approve a multi-year highway bill and legislation to rewrite the No Child Left Behind education law.

The Visa Waiver Program typically allows citizens from participating countries to visit and stay in the US for 90 days or less without needing a visa.

New Visa Waiver bill requires visitors from waiver countries to go through the visa process if they had recently been to Iraq, Iran, Syria or Sudan.

"As we know, one of the great threats posed by ISIS is their ability to recruit foreign fighters, many of whom - including several of the Paris attackers - have western passports which makes it easier for them to enter into the United States".

"As we make it harder for certain people to take advantage of the program, there are people who are going to be deterred from travelling here, and not necessarily terrorists, but travellers", he says.

The Syrian refugee bill, which the administration said was unnecessary because the small number of Syrian refugees are already extensively screened, has not gone anywhere in the Senate and looks unlikely to advance.

"We urge Congress to exercise caution and to avoid passing legislation that would broadly scapegoat groups based on nationality, and would fan the flames of discriminatory exclusion, both here and overseas", the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a letter to lawmakers. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), which has not yet been scheduled for a vote. H.R. 158 requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to terminate a country from the Visa Waiver Program if the country does not share counterterrorism data-and doesn't allow the country back until it complies with the program requirements. "Investing in better human intel is how we will stop them, not by disrupting tourist travel to the United States".

Some lawmakers said they also planned to re-examine a visa that Tashfeen Malik used to come to the country. It would increase the fee charged to applicants using the Department of Homeland Security's electronic authorization system.

From October of next year, each partner country will have to guarantee and verify that it can validate machine-readable and e-passports at every port of entry or it will be removed from the programme until such time as it does.

The GOP proposal, which top House Democrats have endorsed, calls for greater sharing of information among the 38 countries that participate in the program with the United States. The White House supports the new bill, which is expected to be included into a must-pass spending bill, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The bill, which was quickly drafted amid a debate over immigrants and refugees coming into the United States from radicalized regions of the world, passed with the support of 407 congressmen.