Countries should continue to be added to the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) despite delays in the implementation of a biometric air exit mandate on foreigners visiting the U.S., says a scholar at the Heritage Foundation in a recent report. In 2007, Congress mandated that countries with a 3-10% visa refusal rate cannot be added to the VWP until the completion of the biometric mandate, which would track, through fingerprinting, the departure of foreign visitors from U.S. airports, and had an implementation deadline of July 2009. Almost a year later, the mandate continues to be delayed, leaving countries in the 3-10% range, such as Poland, in limbo. Jena Baker McNeil, Homeland Security Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation, asserts that the VWP should not be “inhibited by the failure to produce a biometric system."

McNeill enumerates “a number of benefits that make the [VWP] extremely important, and its survival imperative.” In addition to making countries in the VWP feel as though they have “close ties with the U.S.,” it is also an important tool in public diplomacy:

In 2008, nearly 17 million travelers visited the U.S. through the VWP. These visitors not only invested in the U.S. economy—having spent more than $100 billion in U.S. restaurants, hotels, and shops—but they were able to take back with them ideas about American culture, an experience that often helps to improve America’s image in the world.

If Congress chooses to move forward with an exit requirement, McNeill believes it should do so "irrespective of the VWP,” and that “key allies” should no longer be “made to wait in frustration for membership.”