releases: http://dennisross.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398420
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
This data as json
| url | title | date | year | month | party | chamber | state | member_name | bioguide_id | domain | scraper | source | date_source | text | has_text | collected_at | updated_at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| http://dennisross.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398420 | Ross Votes to Pass Visa Waiver Program Improvement Act | 2015-12-08 | 2015 | 2015-12 | Republican | House | FL | Dennis Ross | R000593 | dennisross.house.gov | legacy | WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 8, 2015 U.S. Rep. Dennis A. Ross (FL-15), Senior Deputy Majority Whip, released the following statement after voting to pass H.R. 158, the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) Improvement Act of 2015, a bipartisan bill that amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to include terrorism risk as a factor the Secretary of Homeland Security shall consider under the electronic system for travel authorization in determining the eligibility of an alien to travel to the United States: I am very happy the House overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan Visa Waiver Program Improvement Act because we must prevent foreign individuals who pose a potential terrorist threat from entering our country. This legislation provides an important additional layer of security to protect our homeland and the lives of Americans in our communities from radical Islamic terrorism. This legislation further addresses the inexcusable vulnerabilities of the Visa Waiver Program by requiring participating countries to provide counterterrorism information and issue their citizens fraud-resistant e-passports, as well as denying Visa Waiver Program status to those who have traveled to terrorist hotspots, like Iraq and Syria, since 2011. The bill also authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to suspend a country from the Visa Waiver Program without prior notice if the country fails to comply with an agreement to share information regarding whether its citizens and nationals traveling to America pose a U.S. security threat. It is estimated that approximately 5,000 Europeans have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS, much of whom are from countries that participate in the Visa Waiver Program. Many of these countries fail to provide the U.S. intelligence community with critical information needed to ensure those traveling under the Visa Waiver Program are not a threat to our nation. While my colleagues and I are doing what we can to protect our country from terrorists, the recent terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, should be an alarming wakeup call that the President must stop putting his personal political agenda before the nation's safety and immediately implement a strategy to defeat ISIS." ### | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |