NEW YORK, 25 July 2004 — Senators appear ready to give 27 countries in the US Visa Waiver Program two more years before requiring that their passports include new security features, called “biometric identifiers.” Acting just weeks after the House of Representatives passed similar legislation, the Senate voted to extend a looming government deadline for US visitors.

The decision marked a major legislative victory for the travel industry, which closely followed the Senate vote. Currently, citizens from about two dozen countries can travel to the United States temporarily without a visa under the Visa Waiver Program. In 2002, Congress set an Oct. 26 deadline for those countries’ passports to include the new biometric security features such as facial recognition, retinal scans and digital fingerprints.

For months the Washington-based Travel Industry of America and other travel industry organizations have urged Congress and the administration to extend the October deadline by which new passports from visa waiver nations had to contain biometric identifiers.

While the travel industry supports the policy, it argued that the visa waiver nations supply more than two-thirds of overseas visitors to the US, and they were all unable to comply by October. “When we realized there was no way this deadline could be met, we pushed hard starting last fall for action to head off confusion and frustration among international visitors,” TIA President and CEO William S. Norman said.

Norman praised Sen. Saxby Chambliss of R-Georgia, Immigration Subcommittee Chairman and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, who he said were instrumental in securing passage of H.R. 4417 earlier this week. This bill will give Visa Waiver Program countries one additional year to begin producing new passports containing the biometric technology.

Current law requires the 27 Visa Waiver Program countries to begin issuing new biometric passports by Oct. 26. When all the VWP countries announced they were unable to meet the deadline, TIA call on the US Congress to extend it. The House passed legislation for a one-year extension on June 14.

There are 27 countries that participate in the Visa Waiver Program: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom.