Designation of Qatar for the Visa Waiver Program

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <CFR>8 CFR Part 217</CFR> <SUBJECT>Designation of Qatar for the Visa Waiver Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of the Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (DHS). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule; technical amendment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Eligible citizens, nationals, and passport holders from designated Visa Waiver Program countries may apply for admission to the United States at U.S. ports of entry as nonimmigrant noncitizens for a period of ninety days or less for business or pleasure without first obtaining a nonimmigrant visa, provided that they are otherwise eligible for admission under applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. On September 20, 2024, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, designated Qatar as a country that is eligible to participate in the Visa Waiver Program, effective September 24, 2024. Accordingly, this rule updates the list of countries designated for participation in the Visa Waiver Program by adding Qatar. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on September 26, 2024. The Secretary's designation is effective on September 24, 2024. The designation will be implemented on December 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Anjum K. Agarwala, Department of Homeland Security, Visa Waiver Program Office, (202) 790-5207. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. The Visa Waiver Program</HD> Pursuant to section 217 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1187, the Secretary of Homeland Security (the Secretary), in consultation with the Secretary of State, may designate certain countries as Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> if certain requirements are met. Those requirements include: (1) a U.S. Government determination that the country meets the applicable statutory requirement with respect to nonimmigrant visitor visa refusals for nationals of the country during the previous full fiscal year; (2) a U.S. Government determination that the country extends or agrees to extend reciprocal privileges to citizens and nationals of the United States; (3) an official certification that it issues machine-readable, electronic passports that comply with internationally accepted standards; (4) a U.S. Government determination that the country's designation would not negatively affect U.S. law enforcement and security interests; (5) an agreement with the United States to report, or make available through other designated means, to the U.S. Government information about the theft or loss of passports; (6) a U.S. Government determination that the government accepts for repatriation any citizen, former citizen, or national not later than three weeks after the issuance of a final executable order of removal; and (7) an agreement with the United States to share information regarding whether citizens or nationals of the country represent a threat to the security or welfare of the United States or its citizens. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  All references to “country” or “countries” in the laws authorizing the Visa Waiver Program are read to include Taiwan. <E T="03">See</E> Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, Public Law 96-8, section 4(b)(1) (codified at 22 U.S.C. 3303(b)(1)) (providing that “[w]henever the laws of the United States refer or relate to foreign countries, nations, states, governments, or similar entities, such terms shall include and such laws shall apply with respect to Taiwan”). This is consistent with the United States' one-China policy, under which the United States has maintained unofficial relations with Taiwan since 1979. </FTNT> The INA also sets forth requirements for continued eligibility and, where appropriate, probation and/or termination of program countries. Prior to this final rule, the designated countries in the VWP were Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, San Marino, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> and the United Kingdom. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <E T="03">See</E> 8 CFR 217.2(a). <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Taiwan refers only to individuals who have unrestricted right of permanent abode on Taiwan and are in possession of an electronic passport bearing a personal identification (household registration) number. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  The United Kingdom refers only to British citizens who have the unrestricted right of permanent abode in the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man); it does not refer to British overseas citizens, British dependent territories' citizens, or citizens of British Commonwealth countries. </FTNT> Eligible citizens and nationals of VWP countries may apply for admission to the United States at U.S. ports of entry as nonimmigrant visitors for a period of ninety days or less for business or pleasure without first obtaining a nonimmigrant visa, provided that they are otherwise eligible for admission under applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. To travel to the United States under the VWP, any person who is not a citizen or national of the United States (hereinafter a “noncitizen”) must satisfy the following: (1) be seeking admission as a nonimmigrant visitor for business or pleasure for ninety days or less; (2) be a national of a program country; (3) present a machine-readable, electronic passport issued by a designated VWP participant country to the air or vessel carrier before departure; (4) execute the required immigration forms; (5) if arriving by air or sea, arrive on an authorized carrier; (6) not represent a threat to the welfare, health, safety, or security of the United States; (7) have not violated U.S. immigration law during any previous admission under the VWP; (8) possess a round-trip ticket, unless exempted by statute or federal regulation; (9) the identity of the noncitizen has been checked to uncover any grounds on which the noncitizen may be inadmissible to the United States, and no such ground has been found; (10) certain aircraft operators, as provided by statute and regulation, must electronically transmit information about the noncitizen passenger; (11) obtain an approved travel authorization via the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA). For more information about the ESTA, please see 8 CFR 217.5 (regulation effective July 8, 2015), 80 FR 32267 (June 8, 2015), 75 FR 47701 (Aug. 9, 2010); (12) has not been present, at any time on or after March 1, 2011, in Iraq, Syria, a country that is designated by the Secretary of State as a state-sponsor of terrorism, or a country or area of concern designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security, during the period of those countries' designations, in accordance with 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12)(A) & (D), subject to statutorily delineated exemptions or a waiver authorized by the Secretary; and (13) waive the right to review or appeal a decision regarding admissibility or to contest, other than on the basis of an application for asylum, any action for removal. <E T="03">See</E> sections 217(a) and 217(b) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)-(b); <E T="03">see also</E> 8 CFR part 217. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Designation of Qatar</HD> The Department of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Department of State, has evaluated Qatar for VWP designation to ensure that it meets the requirements set forth in section 217 of the INA. The Secretary has determined that Qatar has satisfied the statutory requirements for initial VWP designation; therefore, the Secretary, in consultation with the Secretary of State, has designated Qatar as a program country. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The Secretary of State nominated Qatar for participation in the VWP on September 16, 2024. </FTNT> This final rule adds Qatar to the list of countries authorized to participate in the VWP. Accordingly, no later than December 1, 2024, eligible citizens and nationals of Qatar may apply for admission to the United States at U.S. ports of entry as nonimmigrant visitors for business or pleasure for a period of ninety days or less without first obtaining a nonimmigrant visa, provided that they are otherwise eligible for admission under applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Statutory and Regulatory Requirements</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Administrative Procedure Act</HD> Under the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 553(b)), an agency may waive the normal notice and comment requirements if it finds, for good cause, that they are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest. The final rule merely lists a country that the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, has designated as a VWP eligible country in accordance with section 217(c) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(c). This amendment is a technical change to merely update the list of VWP countries. Therefore, notice and comment for this rule is unnecessary and contrary to the public interest because the rule has no substantive impact, is technical in nature, and relates only to management, organization, procedure, and practice. This final rule is also excluded from the rulemaking provisions of 5 U.S.C. 553 as a foreign affairs function of the United States because it advances the President's foreign policy goals and directly involves rela ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━