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The travel and tourism industry views the VWP as a tool to facilitate and encourage foreign visitors for business and pleasure, which results in increased economic growth generated by foreign tourism and commerce for the United States. According to the Department of State (DOS), waiving the visa requirement for high-volume/low-risk countries significantly reduces consular workloads, allowing for streamlined operations, cost savings, and concentration of resources on greater-risk nations in the visa process. On the other hand, it has increased the workload of immigration inspectors at ports of entry by shifting all background checks to ports of entry. DOS may not have the resources it would need to be able to issue visas to the aliens who are using the VWP if the program were to be terminated.
Travelers under the VWP do not undergo the screening required to receive a visa. On the other hand, the VWP enhances security by setting standards for travel documents and information sharing. The ESTA system has improved the security of the VWP, but it is a name-based system and cannot be used to run checks against databases that use biometrics such as DHS's Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) and FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Travelers are checked against these systems through US-VISIT