The report, Immigration: Visa Security Policies, details the security checks that visa applicants must currently undergo before being issued a U.S. visa. These include submitting fingerprints, a photograph and identification information. All prospective lawful permanent residents, and some prospective nonimmigrants, must undergo physical and mental examinations. U.S. consular posts use a biometric and biographic database called the Consular Consolidated Database (CCD) to screen visa applicants, and consular officers also search a Consular Lookout and Support System database (CLASS). From 2013 onward, Consular offices use the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) to check for known and suspected terrorists or terrorist groups.

The report also details policy proposals intended to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of visa security policies. One proposal involves a sharing of confidential information with foreign governments to bolster security, but it raises concerns with the government’s responsibility to protect personal information. Another proposal is to apply visa security checks more broadly, making more foreign nationals coming to the U.S. subject to heightened consular screening procedures. On the other side of security concerns is a desire to welcome foreign travelers who are a boon to the U.S. economy and thus not to unduly hamper the vast majority of legitimate foreign nationals who seek to come to the U.S. for mutual benefit. Reaching the right balance between the two is the major policy challenge.

All VWP applicants must register in advance of their proposed travel through the online Electronic System for Travel Authorization or ESTA.  Only VWP applicants who clear ESTA can board a U.S. bound aircraft; those who do not must apply for and receive a U.S. visitors visa before coming to the U.S.  Within the last year, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State have increased their coordinated efforts to improve security.

After the Paris terrorist attacks in November, 2015, DHS is taking immediate steps to collect additional information on the ESTA application to learn which VWP applicants have traveled to terrorist active countries.  The data is designed to assist in making risk assessments.  DHS is exploring plans for pilot programs to capture applicant biometrics.  It also seeks to identify which countries whose citizens can participate in the VWP are deficient in screening and sharing information with the United States.  Coordination and sharing of information between the National Intelligence Director, the FBI, DHS, the Department of State are now in high gear.  These efforts are targeted towards making current information available on each VWP applicant to keep the U.S. safe from terrorist threats by making the VWP defensively robust.

Migration induced by weather phenomena is nothing new in the history of the planet. In 2008, for example, 20 million people were displaced by extreme weather events. By comparison, in the same year, 4.6 million people were forced to relocate due to conflict and violence. And when one analyzes a longer period of time, gradual environmental changes can have an even greater impact; in the last 30 years, to take one example, 1.6 billion people have been affected by droughts.

And the forecasts for future migrations blamed on the weather are bleak. Indeed, it has been estimated that there will be 25 million to 1 billion environmental migrants by 2050, with 200 million migrants being the most frequently cited figure. Whatever the eventual total turns out to be, these environmental migrants will be moving either within their own countries or across borders on a permanent or temporary basis. Strikingly, the 200 million figure is equivalent to the current estimate of international migrants in the world.

Immigration motivated by climate change was high on the agenda at the 20th Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was held in Lima, Peru on December 1-12, 2014. At the Lima conference, nearly 200 countries met and drafted an agreement on climate change. By its terms, every participating nation will be required to produce, in the next six months, a detailed domestic policy plan for reducing emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases from hydrocarbons such as coal, gas and oil.

While the Lima agreement is set to be signed in Paris in December 2015, the new country-specific plans under the accord will not be enacted until 2020. Most climate experts estimate that at best, the actions will cut emissions by about half of what would be needed to halt a 3.6-degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature.

To put that temperature in perspective, scientists say that, at a 3.6 degree increase, the planet will experience irreversibly dangerous effects, such as melting sea ice, rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and food and water shortages — all of which will trigger mass migrations of people as well as environmental degradation.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who attended the Lima conference, expressed guarded optimism over the accord that was reached: “Nobody here thinks an agreement will be a silver bullet that eliminates this threat. But we can’t get anywhere without an agreement.”

A. Banerjee is a Houston immigration lawyer in Texas. Before selecting an attorney, contact the Law Offices of Annie Banerjee by visiting their information filled web site at http://www.visatous.com.

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