Israel Matzav

Belgian ISIS members can travel to the US and Israel without visas

Greetings from Oakland, California, where I have been staying with relatives since Sunday while having meetings all day in San Francisco. I am leaving Wednesday morning back to Israel (for those wondering about Purim, because I live in Jerusalem, Purim is on Friday for me).

I've been warning for years that the citizens of all those Muslim terrorist-infested European countries may enter the United States (and Israel as well, although I trust Israel to do a much better job of screening and to keep out whomever should be kept out) without visas. In light of Monday's terror attacks in Brussels, that reality is sinking in.

Leading lawmakers identified Belgium as a hotspot for terrorism months ago and are warning that many of the radicalized individuals living there are still able to travel to the United States without first obtaining a visa and undergoing thorough security checks.

Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon Tuesday afternoon that current flaws in the U.S. visa waiver program—which facilities travel to the United States from partner nations including Belgium—have created a loophole that could permit radicalized individuals to legally enter the United States with minimal background checks.

DeSantis is warning of these flaws on the heels of deadly mass terrorist attack in Brussels on Tuesday that has killed at least 30 and wounded hundreds more.

“The visa waiver reform, this is something we have been perusing and the [Obama] administration has brushed us off at every turn,” DeSantis said, explaining that current policy does not mandate more strenuous checks on individuals identified as coming from terrorist hotspots, such as the small Belgian town of Molenbeek, which has emerged as a principal training site for jihadists.

“It’s the case that if those folks are citizens of Belgium they qualify for the visa waiver program and can hop on a plane and get here,” he added. “Clearly, that is not adequate given what happened.”

The Obama administration “even takes the position it’s safer to allow someone to come in on a visa waiver than make them get one, it’s kind of crazy,” DeSantis said. You’re not going to be able to have intelligence on everyone there because there are so many potential recruits. It’s a clear vulnerability.”

What is worse, DeSantis said, is that the Obama administration has been lax about deporting individuals who overstay their visas, meaning that a radicalized person could disappear in America as they plan a potential attack.

“There’s no enforcement once they get here,” DeSantis said. “Hundreds of thousands of people come over and then overstay” their visas. “You are not going to be removed under current policy under this administration.”

DeSantis and other lawmakers first labeled Belgium as a hotspot for ISIS terrorists in the aftermath of the 2015 attacks in Paris. At least five of the Paris attackers were French nationals, two of whom had been living in Belgium. Another one of the terrorists was a Belgian national.

Citizens from both countries are still able to freely travel to the United States under the visa waiver program, which facilitates travel between the American and a host of foreign countries.

“At least six of the Paris attackers could have attempted to enter the country under this program,” DeSantis said in December, during a congressional hearing on the visa waiver program’s flaws.

 What could go wrong? Read the whole thing.

Labels: Belgium, Brussels terror attacks, European anti-Semitism, European support for terrorism, France, Islamic terrorism, travel visas, visa waivers

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:28 AM