The majority of the paris attackers had western passports. With those western passports, they could get into the United States without a visa. This bill has strong bipartisan support and i believe will address the problems identified. This people will also a force high risk individuals who have been to terrorist hot spots to go through a more rigorous screening process before coming to america. It will strenten intelligence information sharing with our allies, which is lacking and crack down on passport fraud. It will also force visa waiver countries to ramp up counterterrorism screening of travelers. But this is just the beginning. Over the coming weeks, we will introduce a slate of new bills passed on the findings of the task force to keep terrorists from crossing our borders. This will include enhancing the security of the visa process. Developing a National Strategy to combat terrorist traveling, improving information sharing here at home and helping foreign partners address securi
Of state and Homeland Security share their thoughts for strengthening the program. Currently individuals from socalled friendly countries are not required to have a visa when entering the u. S. For stays of 90 days or less. This is about an hour and a half. Call to order here. I want to thank the witnesses. There may have been a little miscommunication in terms of the timing. I thought we wanted to start this at 11 00, we had the vote at 10 45. Thats why our attendance is not as strong. Also appreciate we were able to set this up as a roundtable. I want to have Administration People and people from the outside sitting together so we can have a good discussion. This will be pretty much a free flowing discussion which is also nice. Rather than have it structured and seven minutes per senator. When were on a topic ill encourage my colleague to jump in. So its not disjointed. We have four witnesses here, miss kelly parisi. Shes the deputy secretary of the office in the office of policy. Sh
Not required to have a visa when entering the u. S. For stays of 90 days or less. This is about an hour and a half. Call to order here. I want to thank the witnesses. There may have been a little miscommunication in terms of the timing. I thought we wanted to start this at 11 00, we had the vote at 10 45. Thats why our attendance is not as strong. Also appreciate we were able to set this up as a roundtable. I want to have Administration People and people from the outside sitting together so we can have a good discussion. This will be pretty much a free flowing discussion which is also nice. Rather than have it structured and seven minutes per senator. When were on a topic ill encourage my colleague to jump in. So its not disjointed. We have four witnesses here, miss kelly parisi. Shes the deputy secretary of the office in the office of policy. She can speak to the enhancements that dhs is thinking of strengthening the currents visa program. Mr. John wagner is here for customers and Bor
Of the Homeland Security Committee Chairman michael mccaul. Chairman mccaul son of a world war ii veteran is currently serving his sixth term representing texas tenth district which covers from austin to houston. In january hell enter his fourth year as the chairman of the house Homeland Security committee. This committee has oversight of the department of Homeland Security ensuring its able to carry out its core mission of protecting the American People from terrorist attack. He also serves on the committee of Foreign Affairs working to our National Security abroad. Under the chairmans leadership, the committee has made quite the mark during the 114th congress. This year the committee has passed 55 bills, 25 of which came from freshman members. 40 bills have passed the house, almost half from freshmen. And seven bills have become law. All told, it accounts for 10 of public law this year. This is the result of the leadership and teamwork of chairman mccaul and his committee. He also es
Framers of the 14th amendment were actually taking about, you cant get to a lot of these decisions. That is not the way the court has determined to construe the 14th amendment. Thank you for another important episode. I wonder if the timing and the nature of tonights case and others related to it, if it really isnt kind of representing the cleaning up of the failed postcivil war reconstruction business. Im wondering how much time was wasted between then and these cases which occurred. Douglas it is a great question. I think certainly we continue to grapple with these issues today. Certainly, it is a neverending process, one we have to continue to keep working at to figure out how to make our democracy real. Ted it is not just our democracy, but the principles of the declaration of independence, the gettysburg address, the 14th amendment, the concept of equality. We have never been a very perfect country with respect to living up to those ideals, and i think a lot of it is that the just