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Scottsdale police said the three suspects arrested over the last few days came into the country on the Visa Waiver Program.. SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Three people from South America arrested in Scottsdale have been accused of breaking into homes in the East Valley as part of a professional crime ring based in Chile. "These are professionals," Scottsdale Police Chief Jeff Walther said during a news conference Tuesday. "These are Chilean burglary crews that are coming into the country on a Visa Waiver Program." The department used helicopters and drones to search neighborhoods near Pima and Jomax roads after it was...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, and Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) supported a visa waiver for the daughter of a fugitive Ecuadorian banker in exchange for significant campaign contributions to the Democratic Party. On Tuesday, NBC 4 New York reported that Menendez, with express written support from Clinton, intervened on behalf of Estefania Isaías, who was banned from traveling to the U.S. due to accusations of visa fraud. Isaías is the daughter of Roberto Isaias, who lives in Miami and is currently fighting extradition to Ecuador for banking crimes and under investigation for...

Another scandal for the "scandal-free" Obama administration. Not all ICE targets work construction or smuggle drugs. Some are key figures in the Dem machine. But the era of Obama corruption is over. There's a new sheriff in town. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this week arrested two millionaire fugitives from Ecuador whose family donated heavily to American political campaigns. Roberto and William Isaías, 74 and 75, were detained Wednesday in Miami and taken to a detention facility for undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation, The New York Times reported Friday. ICE told the Times that the brothers were “unlawfully present” in...

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez interceded on behalf of an Ecuadorian woman who was banned from traveling to the U.S. because of allegations she had engaged in visa fraud. The woman, Estafania Isaias, is the daughter of a fugitive from Ecuador convicted in absentia for bank fraud and whose relatives in Florida made significant campaign donations to the New Jersey Democrat's 2012 campaign and the Democratic Party. Current and former U.S. government officials tell NBC 4 New York that Estefania Isaias was barred from traveling to the U.S. in 2007 because she allegedly lied on visa applications to bring immigrant...

When was the last time you saw the House of Representatives pass a piece of legislation more significant than naming a post office with a majority of Democrats voting alongside the Republicans? How about a bill that passed by a 407 to 19 margin? Well that’s the vote tally from a proposal to cut off most waivers for visitors hoping to come to the United States without a visa. And that applies to our closest allies, too, if they have visited terror infested nations. (Politico) An overwhelming majority of House lawmakers voted Tuesday to tighten restrictions on individuals entering...

(TRUNEWS)-The House will consider action Tuesday on the U.S. visa waiver program that allows 40 % of foreign visitors to enter the U.S. effortlessly. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy expects the bill to pass, due to bipartisan support, he told CNN. The program permits citizens of participating countries to travel to the U.S. without a visa for up to 90 days, when they meet certain requirements. Fox News has reported the program has allowed 20 million people from 38 countries to visit the U.S. The bill being voted on in the House will end visa-free visits from people who have...

The House overwhelmingly passed legislation on Tuesday (407 to 19) that would overhaul the federal visa waiver program and bar those from Iraq, Syria, Iran and the Sudan, or those who have visited those countries in the last five years, from traveling to the United States without a visa. Action on the proposal comes in response to the recent attacks in Paris from ISIS operatives, and the shooting in California by a couple that expressed support for the terror group on social media. "This will help neutralize the threat from foreign terrorists entering our country," House Speaker Paul Ryan said...

It’s 1776 all over again, as former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Stewart Baker quips. This time, however, we are not talking about unjust taxes or the right to a trial by jury, and no one is dumping tea into Boston Harbor. Instead, the issue is U.S. ability to preserve its own security. Earlier this month, the European Parliament announced its plan to postpone a vote on sharing Passenger Name Records (PNR) with the United States. Essentially, the parliament is reneging on years of negotiations and a standing agreement to share information with the U.S. Data-sharing agreements like the PNR are...

One of the hottest topics in Washington these days is the debate over where the next major terrorist strike will come from. One avenue of attack cited on several occasions by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has concerns regarding the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). For example, last February the Washington Post reported, "[a]t a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Mueller said that the bureau is expanding its focus beyond al-Qaeda and into splinter groups, radicals who try to enter the country through the visa waiver program and 'home-grown terrorists.' The universe of crime and terrorism...

Al Qaeda continues to recruit Europeans for explosives training in Pakistan because they can more easily enter the United States without a visa, the nation"s top intelligence officer said yesterday. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said European al Qaeda recruits in the border region of Pakistan are being trained to use commercially available substances to make explosives, and they may be able to carry out an attack on U.S. territory... Europeans are being recruited specifically because they generally do not need visas to enter the United States, he said. "Purposely recruiting an operative from Europe gives them an extra...

Prague (dpa) - Daniel Novy, a spokesman for the Czech embassy in Washington, did not celebrate when US President George W Bush signed into law a bill that introduces new rules for visa-free travel to the United States. "It is the way it is," Novy tells Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa matter-of-factly. "It is neither a complete victory nor a complete defeat." That is the gist of what the Czech Republic and five other former communist nations - Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia - said in a recent statement. They billed the new US visa rules a step in the right...

Votes in both the House and Senate are likely to occur soon on a conference report for the bill implementing unfulfilled recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. That conference report still includes a provision authorizing DHS to expand the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which enabled convicted 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui to enter the U.S. using just his French passport and would have allowed shoe bomber Richard Reid to enter using just his British passport.

The following is from an email from Gabrielle Goldwater: Home   I   Donate to ACT   I   Subscribe to ACT   I  Join ACT Today   I   Petitions   I   Contact Congress Visa Waiver Program Action Alert, ACT today A message from Michael Cutler, member of ACT Board of Advisors. Please read this important article and the action alert that follows. We need your help.     I was interviewed a couple of days ago by a reporter from the Saint Petersburg Times about the Visa Waiver Program.  I have attached a copy of the article below.    As you might expect, I remain absolutely opposed to this program that in my...

U.S. to ease travel curbs for central Europeans: Bush Tue Nov 28, 2006 6:46am ET TALLINN (Reuters) - U.S. President George Bush vowed on Tuesday to work to ease travel curbs for citizens of central and eastern European countries in an immigration policy change set to please allies that have helped Washington in Iraq. "I am pleased to announce that I am going to work with our Congress and our international partners to modify our visa waiver program," Bush told a news conference during a visit to the Baltic republic of Estonia. "It's a way to make sure that nations...

Prague enlists Czechs in US in campaign to win visa-free status The Czech Republic has begun a campaign calling on Czechs in the United States to lobby the US government to grant the country visa-free status. Hundreds of thousands of Czechs and people who have connections with the Czech Republic received letters from the country's embassy in Washington calling on them to lobby their congressmen and women on the issue.

U.S. visa policy a passport to reduced competitiveness September 20, 2006 BY ED FEULNER During a war, a country needs to rally its allies. Unfortunately, in the midst of the global war on terrorism, we're finding ways to push some of our best allies away. South Korea's an excellent case study. That country's in a rough neighborhood, and it's logical to expect the biggest issue on people's minds would be North Korea's recent missile tests. That's a concern, of course. But South Koreans seem equally upset by the fact that they haven't been included yet in something known as the...

While a former Taliban official enters his sophomore year at Yale on a government-approved visa, students from countries far removed from the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 are finding it much harder to study in the United States with official approval. The problem that South Koreans have with the Visa Waiver, which allows a 90-day stay without a visa in America only for non-immigrant tourists and business travelers (not students or temporary workers), is that South Korea is not currently eligible for the Visa Waiver. This is a result in part to the attacks on 9/11, although South Koreans...

South Koreans who want to visit the U.S. without having to obtain a visa found themselves with a new ally Wednesday. U.S. Sen. George Allen (R-Virginia) said he would give ``100 percent support'' in urging President Bush to give visa-waiver status to South Korea, during a meeting with South Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Lee Tai-sik.. ``For me, requiring these visas is an impediment for business, students, tourism, and for the millions of people of Korean ancestry in our country, who want their families to be able to visit without the long waiting lines to process an application,'' Allen said....

New way forward for US-Polish visas? 06.03.2006 The visa issue has long been a point of contention in Polish-American relations. A fresh initiative to resolve the problem has come from the American Heritage Foundation. Michal Kubicki has the details 06.03.06 For well over a decade now, every Polish politician visiting the United States, from president to deputy foreign minister, has included the visa issue on his agenda, if only in the unofficial part of the visit. Yet, virtually nothing has been achieved for the simple reason that the current rejection rate of visa applications from Poland is almost seven times...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Millions of visitors from key U.S. allies may soon need visas for the United States because their countries will miss a second deadline to include high-tech security features in new passports, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday. The expected failure by the majority of the 27 so-called visa waiver countries to embed a digital photograph in all new passports from Oct. 26 would cause consular nightmares, and travel industry sources say it could cost the U.S. economy billion of dollars in missed travel spending. "The majority of the visa waiver countries are not going to be...