People are evacuated from Brussels Airport / AP
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.
Molenbeek in
particular “is a hellhole that is filled with Belgian national Islamic
radicals who qualify to travel to the U.S. without a visa under the visa
waiver program,” DeSantis warned during the hearing.
DeSantis said on Tuesday
that following the attack in Paris, he realized that the United States
is vulnerable from threats in Europe, in addition to those from Syria
and other terror strongholds.
“The
problem was not just people coming from Syria,” he explained. “There
was a major vulnerability from places in Europe and this Molenbeeck
neighborhood was one of the most egregious that I had seen.”
The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged on Tuesday that Belgium is still a part of the visa waiver program, and that policy has not shifted in the wake of the attack.
“Though
we do not require Belgian citizens to have a visa to travel here for
business or tourism purposes, both the Transportation Security
Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have procedures in
place to identify and prevent travel here from Belgium by individuals
of suspicion,” Jeh Johnson, DHS secretary, said in in a statement on Tuesday.
“All
travelers arriving in the United States are vetted against the U.S.
Terrorist Screening Database, regardless of whether they arrive with a
visa or an Electronic System for Travel Authorization,” Johnson
said. “We continually evaluate whether more screening is necessary,
particularly in light of today’s attacks.”
Asked
about these screening methods, DeSantis cast doubt on the United
States’ ability to thoroughly vet these individuals, explaining that
gaps in U.S. intelligence cannot account for the large number of
radicalized Europeans.
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