Newly introduced restrictions on the US Visa Waiver Program will provoke European countries to employ similar measures that will cause significant difficulties for Iranian nationals traveling to the United States, the National Iranian American Council said in a press release.






WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Thursday, the US Department of Homeland Security announced that foreign nationals who have travelled to Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria after March 1, 2011 will no longer be able to enter the United States under the Visa Waiver Program. The new regulations will also apply to people who hold dual citizenship of the listed nations.

"These plans will both cause major problems for non-US Iranian dual-nationals in their travels to the United States and threaten to provoke European and other [US] VWP [Visa Waiver Program] countries to adopt similar restrictive measures," the release stated on Thursday.

The release added that President Barack Obama’s administration has adopted a narrow interpretation of the legislation amending the Visa Waiver Program and has done nothing to absolve concerns over how the changes could affect Iranian dual-nationals in the United States or abroad.

The US visa waiver program provides visa-free travel to as many as 20 million passengers every year coming to the United States from 38 countries, largely in Europe.


By Sputnik