Source: Aljazeera
Washington DC – The US government has been criticised for changes to its visa waiver programme that targets dual national citizens of Sudan, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
The new measures, voted into law by Congress in late 2015, cancel the US visa waiver for citizens of those four countries who are dual nationals of countries that have visa waiver agreements with the US.
Such dual nationals will now be required to apply for a US visa in person. The changes also mandate people who have travelled to these countries since March 1, 2011.
Critics say that this measure punishes dual nationals, some of whom may have never been to their ancestral countries, such as Jamal Abdi, policy director at the National Iranian American Council in Washington DC.
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| “If your father is an Iranian national, you are considered an Iranian national and that applies even if you have never travelled to Iran,” Abdi told Al Jazeera. |
“But that is the circumstance that a lot of people are going to be faced with.”
Some 20 million people visited the US as part of the VWP in 2014, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which administers the programme in consultation with the State Department.
According to the new restrictions, exceptions will be made on a case-by-case basis, but it is unclear whether explanations will be given to those whose applications are rejected, evoking comparisons to the US’ no-fly list.
Journalists, business travellers and humanitarian workers are among those eligible for waivers, which are currently being explored for dual nationals, according to the State Department.
The administration has defended the new limits on travellers, which come in light of the killing of 24 people in San Bernardino, California, last year by a Pakistani woman who was a permanent resident of the US and her husband, a US citizen.
Since the attack, concerns have been raised about the ability of potential attackers to enter the US without scrutiny.
Others argue that the regulations will only bring a false sense of security to Americans.
“This is a very generalised measure that is not going to be very effective,” said Angelita Baeyens, programme director at the Robert F Kennedy Centre for Human Rights.
“It will not make the country any safer. It’s just to show people that measures are being taken to help protect the US,” she told Al Jazeera.
“It’s also causing a lot of confusion when it comes to interpreting it, and the lack of clarity is an additional problem that is going to make things worse for millions of regular people,” Baeyens added.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)’s Joanne Lin also slammed the move, calling it a “wrong-head law which discriminates based on national origin, parentage and ancestral ancestry.
“Congress has passed, and the Obama administration is now implementing, an unjustified discriminatory law that is fundamentally wrong and un-American,” Lin, the ACLU’s legislative counsel, told Al Jazeera.
Earlier this week, a BBC journalist was prevented from boarding a plane to the US because of her dual British-Iranian nationality.
Two online campaigns were launched condemning what the measure’s opponents call second-class US citizenship based on national origin.
Categories: Discrimination, Immigration, The Muslim Times, USA