Blumenthal Cosponsors Legislation To Encourage Int’l Passport Security & Airplane Passenger Safety
(Hartford, CT) – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is helping to lead in the legislative effort to stop stolen passport use by joining Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) in co-sponsoring the Transnational Regulation of Identity of Passports (TRIP) Act of 2014. Shortly after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing on March 8, 2014, it was revealed that two passengers on the flight were traveling on stolen passports, adding confusion and complication to the investigation. Even more troubling, it was revealed that only three nations including the United States, Great Britain, and the United Arab Emirates, regularly check air passengers against Interpol’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (STLD) Database. In fact, fewer than 20 of Interpol’s 190 member countries used the STLD Database in 2013 that contains over 40 million entries.
The TRIP Act would effectively require Interpol member countries to install the relatively low-cost, easy-to-use infrastructure necessary to use the STLD Database or risk losing access to the United States’ Visa Waiver Program.
Blumenthal said, “This simple, straightforward, system has the capacity to save lives and spare millions from worry. Whether air travelers are flying at home or abroad, they deserve the peace of mind that law enforcement is taking all necessary and available steps to ensure their safety and security. This measure would effectively compel use of the data base of stolen or lost passports by denying temporary visas to citizens of any country that fails to do so. Any country refusing to use Interpol's data base of stolen or lost identity documents is inexcusably endangering our citizens as well as their own. This law send a message to all countries: use the data base, or your citizens will be denied temporary visas to visit here. That's the kind of incentive sure to get them to screen travelers using stolen paper. We don't know whether the two travelers on the missing Malaysian jet were the cause of its disappearance, but certainly they should have been stopped at the gate.”
The TRIP Act would specifically:
1. Remove countries from the United States’ Visa Waiver Program if they have not begun the process of implementing infrastructure to screen passengers on international flights against the Interpol’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database within five years of passage.
2. Deny any country from entering the Visa Waiver Program if they have not made significant progress in implementing infrastructure to screen passengers against the STLD database, starting five years after passage.
3. Deny tourist and business visas to citizens of any country that has not made progress in implementing infrastructure to screen passengers against the STLD database within ten years of passage.
The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) allows citizens of participating countries to travel to the United States without a visa for stays of 90 days or less, when they meet certain requirements. Thirty-seven countries are currently within the program, including France, Italy, Japan, Spain, etc.