THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF QATAR GETTING VISA-FREE ACCESS TO THE UNITED STATES

Last week's announcement, regarding the awarding of visa-free entry privileges to the United States, to passport holders from the State of Qatar, was disturbing. While I understand the political rationale for the action, one wonders whether the Secretary of State bothered to consult the Secretary of the Treasury, and the leaders of OFAC and FinCEN, before making that command decision. He may come to regret it.

I can think of a number of potential problems that this former money launderer has with Qataris evading US visa application scrutiny to enter America:

(1) HAMAS of course, which is resident there. How many Hamas terrorist financiers, intelligence agents, or even violent actors, will be able to transform themselves into a version of a Qatari national that will fool the computer programs granting visa-free access via ESTA? A computer cannot gauge whether the holder speaks the Qatari version of Arabic whe he opens his mouth.

(2) Corrupt actors gaining easy entry, in person, into the American financial structice; who has forgotten FIFA corruption, or payments made to Israeli politicians?

(3) What about enterprising Qarari fraudsters from the Middle East, who have never been arrested, locals hired by Russian and/or Chinese white collar criminal organizations, to make entry into the Continental United States?

Because of my "colorful" work experience, I do foresee problems down the road for US law enforcement, from this decision. Let us only hope that those readers of this article, who work for the FBI, DHS and Treasury, are among them on this Monday.