Visa Waiver Matters

From: The Polish American Congress, Washington, D.C.

To: Officers and Members of the Polish American Congress Members and Friends of the Polish American Community

Date: February 23, 2007

At the end of this summary is a CALL TO ACTION and a suggested text for your immediate use.

The U.S. Congress continues to discuss legislation that would provide Poland and its people the benefit of visa free travel to the United States. When the legislation is passed, your families and friends, who are anxious to come to the US for a family visit or a business trip for a period of at least 90 days, will be able to do so without going through the complicated, time consuming and expensive visa application procedure.

You may recall, that in the beginning of 2006, Senators Santorum and Mikulski proposed Amendment S.4000 to the comprehensive Senate legislation. Later, and in addition to this, Senator Voinovich introduced complementary legislation. Regrettably, both actions ended in failure.

Now, in the new 110th US Congress, the efforts to include Poland in the Visa Waiver Program continue. On January 18, Congressman Phil English (R-PA) introduced bill H.R. 651: "Secure Travel and Counterterrorism Partnership Act". A few days later, on January 22, a corresponding legislation, S. 342, carrying the same title, was introduced in the Senate by Senator George Voinovich (D-OH). Both pieces of legislation propose a pilot Visa Waiver program. Even though the legislation is non-country specific, Poland is consistently indicated as one of the first and most certain beneficiaries.

Most recently, on February 15, the Senate legislation was adopted by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as a part of another security bill - S. 4 (bill: "Improving America's Security by Implementing Unfinished Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007" sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid D-NV). Legislation S. 4 is currently expected to be presented for general debate on the Senate floor in the immediate future, in fact as soon as during the next week (week of February 26th).

WE ARE NOW ASKING ALL OF YOU, BOTH AS INDIVIDUALS AND AS LEADERS IN THE COMMUNITY TO GIVE THIS YOUR UTMOST AND MOST IMMEDIATE ATTENTION.

Please ACT NOW and contact both of your Senators to express your support for the Visa Waiver provisions.

Make also sure to forward this appeal to others.

All Officers of the Polish American Congress - please pass this information on to all members of your Division or organization.

THE MESSAGE TO YOUR SENATORS IS:

“As your constituent I ask you to support the passage of Visa Waiver provisions as a part of the S.4 legislation. Please vote IN FAVOR of inclusion of the Visa Waiver Program provisions in the text of S.4”

CONTACT INFORMATION TO YOUR SENATORS
Senate Web site - http://www.senate. gov/
Call the US Congress Switchboard - (202) 224-3121
Check the Blue pages in the telephone directory

Polish American Congress
1612 K Street, N.W. Suite 410
Washington, D.C. 20006
Tel: (202) 296-6955
Fax: (202) 835-1565
Web: www.polamcon. org

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