10.04.04

Cantwell Announces Bipartisan Legislation with Sen. Jeff Sessions to Close the "Ressam Loophole"

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) today introduced bipartisan legislation with Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to close the "Ressam Loophole" that allows terrorists like Algerian Ahmed Ressam to illegally enter the United States with falsified documents by taking advantage of the Visa Waiver Program. Under Cantwell's legislation, terrorists like Ressam would be stopped long before entering the United States. Cantwell's legislation would make participation in the Visa Waiver Program conditional on those countries adopting biometric fingerprint identifiers in granting visas to third-country nationals as the United States requires through the US-VISIT program.

9-11 Commission Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton supports the Cantwell-Sessions focus and hopes it is addressed as part of the 9-11 bill currently before the United States Senate. Senator Cantwell developed the legislation in consultation with former U.S. Senator Slade Gorton, also a 9-11 commissioner.

"Our borders are only as safe as those of our neighbors and allies," Cantwell said. "After four years, it is long past time that we stop terrorists like Ressam from ever getting to our border in the first place by ensuring that friendly countries like France and Spain have the same standards for determining the identity of third-country nationals as we do."

9-11 Commission Vice Chair Lee Hamilton stated: "I applaud Senator Cantwell for focusing on an important weakness in international border security. Concerted international action to disrupt and detect terrorist travel is an urgent requirement. Instituting biometrics in visas makes the use of fraudulent identities more difficult is an important step in that direction."

In 1999, Ressam entered the United States through Port Angeles with explosives intended for a terrorist attack on Los Angeles International Airport.

Under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), foreign citizens from twenty-seven countries (mostly Western European and North American allies including England, France, Spain and Germany) do not require a visa for entry into the United States – nor an interview and biometric screening at the point of origin. Ressam took advantage of this system by traveling from Algeria to France and then to Canada. At each stop, he created a false identity and was able to enter the United States without a visa by using a false Canadian passport.

The Cantwell-Sessions legislation would close this loophole by requiring that VWP countries to use biometric fingerprint identifiers for third-country nationals like Ressam, thereby making it much more difficult to falsify identities and much easier to discover illegitimate documentation. The legislation requires that the biometric identifiers be compatible with the US-VISIT program, which also requires biometric fingerprint identifiers for third-country nationals.

In a fortunate turn of events, Ressam was caught by an alert U.S. Customs agent who relied on a hunch to catch Ressam, as his passport was an otherwise legitimate travel document but based on a false identity. Under the Cantwell-Sessions legislation, Ressam's biometric identification markers would have been established years before when he first tried to enter France. As a result, once identified as a terrorist, his information could have been shared among allies and he would have been caught immediately when trying to enter the United States.