House Republicans on Thursday accused the Obama administration of going against an explicit understanding between Congress and the White House on how to implement a new law that limits visa-free travel to the U.S., a charge that could eradicate any remaining trust that might still exist between the two branches on the critical issue of homeland security.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday that it would start implementing new limits on access to the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, according to a law passed one month ago. The law is aimed at preventing visa-free travel for foreign nationals who recently visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria, over fears that those travelers may be looking to commit acts of terrorism.
The law gives the executive branch a national security waiver. DHS said it would use that waiver to consider exemptions to the tighter visa rules for several categories of travelers.
They include people traveling to any of the four countries for humanitarian or journalism purposes. It also said it may exempt people who traveled to Iran for “legitimate business-related purposes.”
National security waivers are normally very broad, and they’ve been used by past administrations to waive all kinds of sanctions. But in this case, Republicans say the Obama administration is going too far, since it agreed with Congress that it wouldn’t create these kinds of waivers.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said immediately after the DHS announcement that whatever the law says, the White House is doing exactly what it said it wouldn’t do.
“The administration plans to include waivers that were explicitly rejected during negotiations with the White House, State Department and Department of Homeland Security, including the ability to waive individuals from the new security requirements if they traveled to the covered countries (Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Sudan) for certain government, humanitarian, or journalistic purposes—or to Iran or Iraq for business purposes,” he said.
McCaul said after that deal was struck, Congress wrote the law to include waivers only for members of the military, and those in government service who may have had reason to travel to one of the four countries.
But those waivers, plus the broader national security waiver in the law, were never intended for use to cover humanitarian, journalism or business travel.
“The exemptions section in the bill was heavily debated between House Democrats, the White House, DHS, State and us,” a House GOP aide told the Washington Examiner. “We basically whittled down the list of exceptions down to those in the bill.”
Now, that aide said, the White House is arguing that there’s a national security reason to not limit visa-free travel by people who go to Iran on business. The White House says failing to carve out exemption might make Iran angry, and threaten implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, which poses a national security threat.
But while that argument may or not make sense legally, Republicans view it as an abrogation of a deal they reached late last year.
“We had an agreement with the White House, House Democrats and agencies on this text,” the aide said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., agreed, and said the White House was using what was meant to be a “small window of discretion” to create huge exemptions that Congress said it opposed.
“[T]he categories of people that the Obama Administration is exempting from the law were expressly rejected by Congress,” he said.
The House aide also warned that the White House’s attempt to stretch the definition of “national security” will also likely make it harder for Congress to trust the administration to implement these waivers in the future.
“For them to come back with exemptions that were rejected by the members … the problem is that, if exemptions for journalists become national security exemptions … then everything can fit into that rubric,” he said.
McCaul warned that Republicans would “respond,” and are “reviewing our options” on how to handle the administration’s decision to abandon the deal they had.
The House aide said for now, members wanted to register their opposition to the DHS announcement, but said hearings and other “further steps” are possible.
