U.S. Visa fees and reciprocity abroad?

[Guest]

I'm going to South America shortly, and was somewhat shocked to learn that Chile is now charging U.S. citizens a $100 "reciprocity fee" to enter the country! I've been to over 50 foreign countries on five continents, and have never seen a fee like this (neighboring Argentina doesn't seem to be charging anything). x( So is the U.S. really charging Chileans $100 to enter our country? Or is this becoming a more general problem since 9/11? This could be very disturbing if Americans have to end up coughing up $100 every time we want to cross a border... What's going on here???

[Guest Love Bubble Butt]

Unfortunately, it's called "what goes around, comes around." And it's coming around. :-(

[Chuck50]

I visted Chile many years ago before the Charge and loved the country. I hope the present charge is worth it? HUGS Chuck

[Michael]

> So is the U.S. really charging Chileans $100 to enter our country?

 

In a word, "yes".

 

If you don't come from one of the countries which is covered by the

U.S. "visa waiver" program then you need a visa to enter the U.S.

 

Visitor's visas cost $100 and, as far as I know, Chile isn't covered

by the waiver program.

 

I vaguely recall that, in the late 70's or early 80's the U.S. announced

that *all* vistors would require a visa - this was a change from previous

practice where vistors from certain countries did not require a visa at all.

 

This was met with considerable hostility and a number of countries,

including the UK, threatened to retaliate by requiring U.S. vistors to

get visas in order to visit. The U.S. then backed down in a diplomatic

way - technically all vistors needed a visa, but a "visa waiver" program

was instituted so that vistors from certain countries could come for

up to 90 days without one. The net result however, is that the visa

waiver program tends to cover countries which are at least one of:

 

- English speaking

- European

- important economic or trading partner of the U.S.

 

and thus most of South America doesn't qualify ...

[ad rian]

Just wait until they start finger printing and requiring registration of all address changes as a matter of reciprocity too!

[trilingual]

It's a rare day when I agree with "ad rian," but it's true. We treat foreign visitors abominably.

 

I'd strongly suggest that you check with the Chilean consulate for information. The U.S. just raised it's fee for a visa to US$100, and many countries, including Brazil, have reciprocated in kind. However, the fee is for a VISA, not per entry, so I'm not sure that Chile is really charging $100 just to enter the country. Brazil, for example, requires U.S. citizens to have a visitors visa, and is now charging $100 for the pretty rubber stamp in your passport, but there are no additional fees to enter Brazil, any more than there are additional fees to enter the U.S. once a foreign visitor has obtained a visa.

 

BTW, if people don't like this, write your Congressional representatives. U.S. visa fees have become extortionate, along with all the other fees charged by INS. To add insult to injury, to get a visa, you have to make an appointment at the consulates, and they make you dial an expensive "900" type phone number to make the appointment! Even to get basic information over the phone about a visa they do the same thing! Not only is that obscene, especially in poor countries, it goes a long, long way to increasing hostility towards the U.S. among people who already don't like us very much.

 

When will they ever learn?

[ad rian]

>However, the fee is for a VISA, not per

>entry, so I'm not sure that Chile is really charging $100 just

>to enter the country. Brazil, for example, requires U.S.

>citizens to have a visitors visa, and is now charging $100 for

>the pretty rubber stamp in your passport, but there are no

>additional fees to enter Brazil, any more than there are

>additional fees to enter the U.S. once a foreign visitor has

>obtained a visa.

 

In the case of Chile,the fee is not a Visa fee. It is a straight Reciprocity charge due when you land. In the case of Brazil, it is a Visa Reciprocity charge. In both cases, the fee is a one time only charge and is as good as the length of the Visa in the case of Brazil, or the length of the passport in the case of Chile. I always ask for and receive a 5 year tourist visa to Brazil. I am not sure how common that is though. (BTW, wait until foreign countries start applying reciprocity to drivers licenses too. We will reap what we sow!)

 

>BTW, if people don't like this, write your Congressional

>representatives. U.S. visa fees have become extortionate,

>along with all the other fees charged by INS.

 

It is about time that reasonable people stand up and also say that this adds nothing to the so-called war on terrorism. Terrorists don't stand in line for oficial documentation. We simply have to stop falling the Isaraeli methods of fighting terror. These have not worked for Israel either. We are following the wrong examples.

[ad rian]

Just wait until the Canadians start applying Reciprocity to the new Gestapo tactics described below on the Northern border! Fun wow? This is a very stupid thing for any immigrant and multi-ethnc socirty to do:

 

New Canadians alienated by U.S. travel indignities

 

By GLORIA GALLOWAY

 

Thursday, January 2, 2003 ­ Print Edition, Page A1

 

Muzaffar Iqbal will not be fingerprinted and photographed by U.S. immigration officials and he will not sign a registry before entering the United States.

 

He refuses to submit to what he considers indignities that are not required of all Canadians.

 

As a result, Mr. Iqbal -- Pakistani by birth, but Canadian by citizenship -- is denied entry to Canada's giant neighbour. That denial is in effect despite assurances from the Foreign Minister that Canadians would not be subjected to additional scrutiny on the basis of where they were born.

 

"The [u.S.] registration system is much more than the initial fingerprinting," Mr. Iqbal said recently.

 

The chemist and leading Islamic scholar who lives in Edmonton was speaking after being turned back by the Americans as he tried to fly to Washington to attend a scientific conference.

 

"It is a complete code of apartheid based on race, religion and country of origin."

 

Mr. Iqbal is not alone. By mid-December, roughly 200 Canadians had launched protests with the Department of Foreign Affairs.

 

They allege they had been subjected to unfair probing by U.S. immigration officials on the basis of their country of birth.

 

Many of those complaints were lodged after the Americans promised to stop treating foreign-born Canadians differently from those born in Canada.

 

The first grievances were received on Sept. 13, two days after U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service brought in strict new rules requiring anyone born in countries suspected of being breeding grounds for terrorists to be fingerprinted and photographed as they entered the United States. The new procedures were to apply regardless of citizenship.

 

Initially, there were five countries on the list: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Sudan. On Oct. 1, the United States said people from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen could also expect extra attention from immigration officials.

 

It was a policy that enraged long-time citizens of Canada such as Mr. Iqbal who found their passports were not equal to those belonging to people born on Canadian soil. And it drew ire in Ottawa where Foreign Minister Bill Graham promised to force the Americans to back down.

 

"A Canadian is a Canadian for all purposes," he proclaimed indignantly in the House of Commons.

 

On Oct. 31, Mr. Graham announced he had received assurances from U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that no distinction would be made at the borders based on place of birth.

 

But Mr. Iqbal said the room in Toronto's Pearson International Airport -- where he was detained by U.S. immigration officials for eight hours before he finally refused to submit to their new requirements -- tells another tale.

 

"This was a terrible room where 10 or so people were sitting and the officers were continuously coming in and out of their little cubbyholes and I saw people coming out in tears and people who were being fingerprinted and it was a shock to me," he said.

 

An 85-year-old Canadian woman who was born in Afghanistan was sitting in one chair, he said. She had been there for four hours.

 

"She couldn't even stand on her feet," Mr. Iqbal said. "I said, 'Is she going to turn into a terrorist? She can't even walk.' "

 

In another chair was an American born in Afghanistan.

 

"He was a U.S. citizen who had come to Canada two days before to visit his cousin and he was stopped because he was told that they cannot find his citizenship papers in the computer system," Mr. Iqbal said. "They said [his] passport may be fake. He had the driver's licence, he had so many other documents to prove his identity."

 

Mr. Iqbal was not completely surprised to be singled out for a secondary examination as he tried to cross the border. The same thing had happened in October when he tried to fly from Edmonton to Denver. But the U.S. immigration officials who stopped him that time knew him and sent him on his way.

 

He assumed that they had sorted out whatever problem had barred his entry before, he said. And he was doubly reassured by Mr. Graham's statements that the issue had been resolved.

 

"When I heard this. . . . then I stopped keeping track of these things. I just assumed that we're fine. But apparently we are not."

 

A spokesman for the U.S. embassy denied last week that Canadian citizens were still being selected for registration at border crossings based on where they were born.

 

"There are people who are selected randomly" or because "their story doesn't make sense," he said. "They're not picked out because of the country of their birth."

 

 

But since the day the agreement was reached between Mr. Powell and Mr. Graham, the United States has expanded the number of countries it considers suspect to include Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.

 

All men born in those countries who are 16 years of age or older, who entered the United States on or before Sept. 30, and who plan to stay until after Feb. 21 have been told they must be fingerprinted, photographed and registered.

 

And while that does not mean that Canadians born in those countries will be forced to go through all of that as they enter the United States, Reynald Doiron of the Department of Foreign Affairs said "they could be subjected to more probing, more questioning. . . . It would be the INS officer's judgment call based on 'reasonable suspicion or actual advanced knowledge.' "

 

Mr. Doiron said the number of complaints his office receives from Canadians who believe they have been mistreated by U.S immigration officers on the basis of their birth country is winding down. But the drop can be interpreted in a number of ways, he said.

 

"We hope and we think that it's directly related to the assurances given to our minister by Secretary of State Powell whereby country of birth is not the sole trigger to submit people to that regulation," he said.

 

But it could be that people born in countries that arouse suspicion are simply refusing to travel to the United States. And other people, Mr. Doiron said, may be submitting to the requirements without complaint "because they have to go to the U.S. and they don't want to start saying things that will come back to haunt them."

 

Isabelle Savard, a spokeswoman for Mr. Graham, said her boss was aware that there were still some problems at the borders. Deputy Prime Minister John Manley raised those concerns two weeks ago when he met with Tom Ridge, the Director of Homeland Security in the United States.

 

"We're being reassured by the American authorities that they are sending messages to employees at the border. We are assured that place of birth does not automatically trigger registration," Ms. Savard said.

 

"The U.S. immigration officials have the right to register non-immigrant aliens regardless of nationality. These things take time to be implemented. . . . and in general we are quite satisfied that the U.S. is trying to address our concerns."

 

In the meantime, many Canadians are playing it cautious.

 

Nancy Nightingale, the principal of A. Y. Jackson Secondary School, an art school in Toronto, recently cancelled a field trip to a Buffalo art gallery because U.S. officials could offer no guarantee that some of her students would not be subjected to special scrutiny.

 

Despite the agreement between Mr. Powell and Mr. Graham, "it is up to the individual [immigration] officer who would get on the bus and make a decision about whom he may want to profile or not," Ms. Nightingale said. "We did see it as a case of profiling and we absolutely refused to participate in any kind of activity like that."

 

As for Mr. Iqbal, he says he will not barter away his dignity for the privilege of entering the United States.

 

"It is not just the question of being detained at INS offices for hours and of being photographed and fingerprinted, it is a question of our basic rights being violated," he wrote in a letter to Mr. Graham last week.

 

"Thousands of Canadians have relatives and friends who live across the border. And in this holiday season, they will not be able to visit them unless they are willing to submit themselves to this humiliation."

 

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[Guest VanBCGuy]

As a Canadian who frequently travels to the US, it is becoming problematic to travel down south.

 

I travel under a NAFTA visa, which is relatively easy to obtain. I work for a US company that requires I travel there.

 

I have had my NAFTA Visa lifted several times. Once, no reason was given, but I reapplied and had it back the next week. I also had it lifted when I was travelling through the US on my way to Australia. (I think the guy was new and made a mistake, but he had a gun so I wasn't about to argue).

 

The Canadian government is considering not listing the country of birth in Canadian passports, since there have been lots of problems at the border with Canadian citizens of foreign birth.

[ad rian]

>As a Canadian who frequently travels to the US, it is

>becoming problematic to travel down south.

>

>I travel under a NAFTA visa, which is relatively easy to

>obtain. I work for a US company that requires I travel there.

 

Good luck getting a driver's license now. In NY, you must have at least 6 months left on the "Visa" to get one, but the TN (NAFTA) Visa only last for 1 year at a time although there is no limit on the number of times it may be renewed. I am hoping that Canada will apply reciprocity to these requirements.

 

And I am also hoping that Canada will re-issue its Travel Advisory warning foreign-born Canadians not to travel to the United States for fear of persecution. That seemed to have got a bee under the bonnet of the State Department last Fall.

[Guest]

Well, I hope that those of us who travel, especially, will write to our representatives in Congress to complain. Imagine visiting five countries in Central or South American and having to pay $500 in reciprocity fees! I can't say I blame these countries. Imagine if Caribbean countries started to do that. The cruise industry would have some serious financial problems! x(

[Guest]

> In both cases, the

>fee is a one time only charge and is as good as the length of

>the Visa in the case of Brazil, or the length of the passport

>in the case of Chile.

 

Boy, am I glad Chile has a policy that the passport validity has to extend six months beyond the entry into Chile. That made me get a brand new passport in December (otherwise my passport would have expired on February 28, 2003).