Tourists visiting the United States may face "extreme vetting" measures proposed by President Donald Trump, including having to answer questions about their political beliefs and handing over mobile phones and passwords to their social media accounts.
The changes are being considered as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducts a worldwide review of border vetting procedures, and could affect travelers from America's allies, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Early Wednesday, Democrats are likely to grill U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly about the proposals during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.
The president called for the review of vetting procedures in his executive order in March barring people from six majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S.
The top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) told the WSJ through a spokesman that she "is deeply concerned about the vetting procedures and how they might be applied."
President Trump's executive order called for the "development of a uniform baseline for screening and vetting standards and procedures." Key parts of the travel ban executive order were stopped from going ahead in mid-March by a federal judge in Hawaii, such as its attempt to block travel and refugee applications from the named countries. However, other aspects of the order, including the review of vetting standards, remained untouched.
"If there is any doubt about a person's intentions coming to the United States," Gene Hamilton, a senior counselor to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), told the WSJ, "they should have to overcome—really and truly prove to our satisfaction—that they are coming for legitimate reasons."
The 38 nations that benefit from the U.S. Visa Waiver Program that allows them to travel to America for 90 days without applying for a visa—including Norway, Japan, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom—may also face the new restrictions, a senior official told the WSJ. And a senior DHS official working on the review said that an "ideological test" that Trump proposed as a candidate is also in the works.
Civil liberties groups have called many of the proposals counter to American values. "Demanding passwords or other account credentials without cause will fail to increase the security of U.S. citizens and is a direct assault on fundamental rights," said a group of about 50 civil liberty organizations and legal experts after Secretary Kelly testified to congress about collecting the passwords in February.
Kelly said that handing over the information would be a condition of entering the country. "This proposal would enable border officials to invade people's privacy by examining years of private emails, texts, and messages," the civil liberties groups said in their statement. "And it would discourage people from using online services or taking their devices with them while traveling, and would discourage travel for business, tourism, and journalism."
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Graham Lanktree covers U.S. politics for Newsweek. He is based in London and frequently appears as a contributor on BBC ... Read more
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