Washington:
US lawmakers on edge after the Paris attacks launched by French and Belgian jihadists, are calling into question a program that allows Europeans to travel to America without a visa.
Members of Congress, including in President Barack Obama's Democratic Party, have vowed to close loopholes, introducing legislation Thursday aimed at preventing Islamic State extremists from slipping into the United States.
Following deadly attacks against satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo last January in Paris, US lawmakers grew increasingly concerned about the travel freedoms afforded to nationals of 38 countries, including 23 in the European Union, plus Australia, Chile, Japan, Norway, Singapore and others.
The agreements, which date back to the late 1980s and early 1990s, allow them to travel visa-free to the United States for up to 90 days.
Some 20 million people took advantage of the program in 2013, according to the Department of Homeland Security, about one third of all temporary US visits.
Applicants simply must fill out an online biographical data form, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization.
Americans are granted reciprocal visa-free travel rights to countries in the program, and authorities must share biometric, criminal and other data, including on lost or stolen passports.
Until recently, politicians pushed for expanding the preferred list to boost the tourism sector.
The question of Syrian refugees has dominated the security debate in the United States ever since a Syrian passport was discovered near the body of one of last week's attackers in Paris, leading to speculation he entered Europe posing as a refugee.
But US politicians warn the visa exemption flaws may be far more serious.
"I'm going to put... greater emphasis on dealing with the visa waiver program," Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker told reporters.
The problem, lawmakers here say, is that the European Union does not share enough database information with US authorities, which prevents Americans from identifying a potential jihadist needle in the haystack of US-bound travelers.
The fear is that extremists bearing French passports for example, could freely board a flight bound for New York or Washington. It is still unclear whether the Paris attackers were on US blacklists.
Lawmakers also worry that EU authorities are awarding refugee status to some of the 800,000 migrants arriving on the continent without conducting sufficient background checks.
The status enables refugees to obtain EU passports after several years -- and thus visa-free access to US shores.
Targeted reformsRepublicans in the House of Representatives, which like the Senate is Republican-controlled, have said they will introduce legislation in December to address the visa-waiver program.
"Obviously that's a vulnerability when you have 5,000 foreign fighters with western passports," Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul said.
"We need to tighten up those security gaps."
McCaul did not disclose the contents of the bill, but a September task force report released by his office offered clues.
The paper warned that European authorities do not systematically transmit data on extremists to their US counterparts.
It pointed to the case of Ayoub El Khazzani, a Moroccan national living in Belgium who was thwarted as he attacked a Paris-bound train in August.
He was on the radar of European counterterrorism authorities but El Khazzani's name had not been sent to US officials, CNN reported.
If he were not on the US no-fly list, he theoretically could have boarded a plane from Europe to the United States without triggering terrorism warnings.
The same McCaul report recommended the formation of a "central repository for foreign fighter identities."
Last January, House Republican Candice Miller proposed legislation allowing the suspension of a country from the visa waiver program if it failed to comply with information-sharing agreements.
That bill was shelved. But McCaul's September report has made the same recommendation.
Senate Democrat Dianne Feinstein, joined by Republican Senator Jeff Flake, unveiled legislation on Thursday aimed at closing certain visa loopholes.
Feinstein said their bill would prevent anyone who has visited Iraq or Syria within the past five years from using the visa waiver program.
She said she also wants to address the "huge problem" of fake passports, which she estimated at about 40 million today.
McCaul's Homeland Security Committee has recommended requiring the use of "fraud-resistant" e-passports with biometric information for any country wishing to remain a part of the visa waiver program.