Sen. Bond joins calls for tightening visas

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Kit Bond is pushing for background checks for foreign visa applicants and a sophisticated tracking system once they arrive in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Dozens of those detained for questioning about the suicide hijackings were from Middle Eastern countries and had violated immigration rules, and many are charged with overstaying visitor or business visas. One suspected hijacker on the Pentagon-bound airliner entered on a student visa.

"Right now we have no ability to identify, locate or remove foreigners who deliberately remain in this country long after their tourist or student visas expire," said Bond, R-Mo. "We have a responsibility to enforce visa deadlines, but right now we do not have the manpower or money to do so."

Bond planned Thursday to tour immigration facilities in Kansas City and St. Louis and to discuss the issue with immigration and law enforcement officials in Springfield and Joplin.

Congress responded swiftly to the attacks by authorizing the use of military force, passing $40 billion in emergency spending and approving another $15 billion to bail out the airline industry. Now lawmakers are circulating proposals that, like Bond's, are aimed at preventing another attack.

Legislation by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., would go even further, closing U.S. borders for six months while similar measures are put in place. The hijacking suspect issued a student visa was Hani Hanjour, who said he would study English at Holy Names College in Oakland but never enrolled.

"I know this isn't politically correct, but what has happened indicates I think serious caution is a prudent thing on our part," Feinstein said in an interview Wednesday.

David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, said he prefers Bond's broader approach and opposes halting the visa program. The council's members include most accredited American colleges and universities.

"I'm all for security, but we may as well deal with everybody and not just students, Ward said. "Since student visas are only 2 percent of the total, it really isn't solving the security problem."

The proposals will be introduced in the coming weeks and considered by the Judiciary Committee, whose Democratic chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, "is willing to look at any proposals that address the problem of visitors overstaying their visas," spokesman David Carle said Wednesday.

Under Bond's proposal to close loopholes in the visa program, the United States would impose a 30-day waiting period on U.S. visa applicants in foreign countries for background checks against criminal and counterintelligence databases.

Bond also is seeking to shrink the list of 29 countries where no visas are needed to enter the United States to only those nations with stringent security standards for passports.

The measure would put in place an automated entry-and-exit control point system to identify those who overstay temporary visas, to be paid for with visa application fees, and create a visa control office within the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Visa control information would be part of federal and local law enforcement databases, as would the State Department's watch list of foreigners who should be denied visas, and airlines would have access to the watch list.

Visas for tourists, students and other visitors would be tamper-proof and contain digital readings of the holder's thumbprint or facial screening, and schools -- including flight schools -- would be required to inform the INS if student visa holders failed to report within two weeks of graduation.