Richard Pombo: “just to explain this amendment, what it does is it takes the refusal rate from 2 percent to 3 percent. Under that…”

“just to explain this amendment, what it does is it takes the refusal rate from 2 percent to 3 percent. Under that change, there are 2 countries that would currently qualify to be included in the Visa Waiver Program, those two countries being Portugal and Greece. The refusal rate, just to explain to my colleagues exactly what that is, is that if they go in and apply for a visa, if they are refused, that goes into the category in the refusal rate. To explain that further, I recently had a friend of mine whose parents wanted to come over to this country in order to attend their granddaughter's graduation from high school, and they were refused a visa from Portugal to come into this country. Even though they own a home over there, even though they own a business over there, even though they have been to this country in the past and returned, they were refused. And because those two people were refused, we now need over a hundred other people who need to apply and get approved in order to keep the rate under. So that is what the refusal rate is. What we are talking about is taking it from 2 people in 100 to 3 people in 100 that are refused under this arbitrary rate. Furthermore, under the current rules, there are only 2 countries within the European Union that are exempted from the program, those being Greece and Portugal, because of the way that the numbers are currently done.”