21stcenturylove

...DHS spokeswoman Kimberly Weissman said the new system will only affect travelers visiting the United States on a visa, and will not affect U.S. citizens or green-card holders. US-VISIT will start at 115 airports and 14 seaports, and will include border checkpoints later in the year.

``The next deadline is Dec. 31, 2004, to implement the system at the 50 busiest land border ports of entry,'' Weissman said.....

Source:http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...ws/7635938.htm

We shall see if any citizens of US VISA waiver country are affected by this new system in the days to come.

Khadija

Presumably K1 and K3 entrants will be subject to this new system if not from a VWP country, right?

Patty Khadijah

cindyabs

I dare say Patty, Tom Ridge said that there were only 28 countries NOT affected by this, mainly European ones. Their citizens are allowed 90 days stays in the US. It would make sense on the K1 and K3 from affected countries since K1 folks would be applying for AP and the K3 folks would have the multiple entry thing going on. Just one more way to be kept track of. The news item said that they also promptly turned back folks at the airport using this system.

sibsie

The new scheme does NOT apply to travellers from VWP countries using VWP to enter the US.

Rete

Even if they were from a VW country they would be inspected and processed at the POE regardless. So if they had to take a photo and biometric print, it can be done right there and then while the other processing is being done.

Rete

masri

This is even more interesting: I was listening to BBC last night, and they interviewed a British citizen, entering with a British passport under the VWP, who was put through the US-VISIT program.

Her flaw?....born in Iran.

majken

You'd think they'd at least try to be consistent with the application of the rules.

To quote George Orwell from Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Steffi

What I find interesting is that they are doing this to keep terrorists out of the US....now is it just me, or did anyone else think of the fact that some of the past terrorists had passports of VWP countries? I'm sure others do too. So how exactly will it stop them? If you're going to do it at least do it to everyone, not some half-ass stuff (excuse my French).

Steffi

Or are they catching them....?

Simone

this is NOT fair because most of those terrorist from september 11th
had european passports. i only think that this scheme should apply to
EVERY country if they really want to protect the US. the way it is now
it's just very discriminating.


sibsie <member17406@british_expats.com> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
    > Originally posted by 21stcenturylove
    >
    > We shall see if any citizens of US VISA waiver country are affected by
    > this new system in the days to come. The new scheme does NOT
    > apply to travellers from VWP countries using VWP to enter the US.

Mrraveltay

Simone wrote:

    > this is NOT fair because most of those terrorist from september 11th
    > had european passports.

No, most of them had Saudi passports.

bluesails

Oh...I thought you said tourists...

Andrew Defaria

Simone wrote:

    > this is NOT fair because most of those terrorist from september 11th
    > had european passports. i only think that this scheme should apply to
    > EVERY country if they really want to protect the US. the way it is now
    > it's just very discriminating.

Fair has nothing to do with it. Discriminating does. I liken this to a
comment made by Bill Maur (sp?) on Politically Incorrect WRT "profiling"
for terrorists - "The problem is that they use the word 'profiling'. If
the substituted that with 'good detective work' then it would be OK".
Yes it's discriminatory, as it should be (or perhaps needs to be even
more discriminatory).

Look at it this way: The local police can provide security to the
general populace by interrogating each and every person they see. That'd
catch the bad guys alright. It would not be discriminatory and would be
"fair" from the standpoint of "everybody gets treated the same". However
it's unrealistic (not enough resources), kills the 4th amendment,
overbearing and quite frankly not "good detective work". I don't think
we should be extending concepts of "fairness" to this situation and let
the common sense of "good detective work" prevail instead of stretching
our limited resources to apply to every this or that in every case so as
not to "discriminate".

    > sibsie <member17406@british_expats.com> wrote in message
    > news:<[email protected]>...
    >> Originally posted by 21stcenturylove
    >> We shall see if any citizens of US VISA waiver country are affected by
    >> this new system in the days to come. The new scheme does NOT
    >> apply to travellers from VWP countries using VWP to enter the US.

--
Is French kissing in France just called kissing?

bluesails

Are you implying this system is "common sense or good detective work"?

Extending your analogy, if the police simply applied the _interrogate each and every person_ BUT ONLY "from the east side projects" Would it be more realistic? Would it still kill the 4th amendment? Would it be intrusive (if you lived within that boundary)? Would it be good detective work?

Bottom line, the current situation is not workable, does not increase safety, it just leaves honest people hanging out to dry - waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting....

I miss Bill Mayer.


Fair has nothing to do with it. Discriminating does. I liken this to a
comment made by Bill Maur (sp?) on Politically Incorrect WRT "profiling"
for terrorists - "The problem is that they use the word 'profiling'. If
the substituted that with 'good detective work' then it would be OK".
Yes it's discriminatory, as it should be (or perhaps needs to be even
more discriminatory).

Look at it this way: The local police can provide security to the
general populace by interrogating each and every person they see. That'd
catch the bad guys alright. It would not be discriminatory and would be
"fair" from the standpoint of "everybody gets treated the same". However
it's unrealistic (not enough resources), kills the 4th amendment,
overbearing and quite frankly not "good detective work". I don't think
we should be extending concepts of "fairness" to this situation and let
the common sense of "good detective work" prevail instead of stretching
our limited resources to apply to every this or that in every case so as
not to "discriminate".

Steffi

Huh? *confused*