re: "The Heritage Foundation Urges Continued Expansion of VWP"

NoDoubleStandard at Calling a Spade a Spade ("Rants of a Foreign Service Officer on the things that matter to you -- and matter to you not at all") examined some of the visa waiver program's weaknesses.

Money quote(s):

"(A)t VWP's inception in 1986, the focus was on facilitating travel for citizens of countries posing a low risk of overstay. Because French citizens, for instance, weren't likely to remain the U.S. as illegal workers, it didn't make any sense to make them apply for visas. It's a waste of resources to process visa applications, when the refusal rate is next to zero.

The initial focus wasn't security."

"The program is now tighter, because measures were taken to make abuse of VWP more difficult. Let's face it; if the primary concern is thwarting terrorist and criminal travel, it's far more effective to abolish the program and interview everyone. Does that mean VWP should be shut down? Of course not. As the report states, "security, freedom and prosperity" have to be balanced."

&

"Further expansion of VWP, however, will require a renewal of DHS's ability to grant refusal-rate waivers for countries above the 3% cutoff, so that countries under 10% could still conceivably enter the program after June 30, 2009.

My take?

Bad idea."

Read the whole thing.