Poland to Admit into US Visa Waiver Program
January 25, 2012 – Republican Sen. Mark Kirk and 5th District Democratic Congressman Mike Quigley have recently met with Poland’s President, BronisĹ‚aw Komorowski, and other state officials in their four-day trip to Poland just recently.
The two bipartisan parties discussed an important topic in U.S.–Polish relations: Poland’s aspirations for inclusion in the Visa Waiver Program, as well as defense and national security issues.
The Visa Waiver Program enables passport holders from friendly member nations to temporarily visit the U.S. for up to 90 days without first obtaining a visa. Any visitor to the US must first submit information through the program’s online portal, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA). An ESTA application is a prescreening system that all passengers traveling under the Visa Waiver Program are required to undergo in order to have an approved travel authorization prior to traveling to the United States by air or sea. Even non-ticketed infants are required to have an approved online ESTA travel authorization, if they do not have a visa for travel to the United States. Once the ESTA to USA is vetted and cleared, a traveler is then pre-approved for visa-free travel for up to two years.
Currently, Poland is not on that list of VWP countries. Though in 2010, there were more than 152,000 non-immigrant visitors who entered the United States from Poland. However, despite Poland’s longstanding interest in joining the Visa Waiver Program and the long record of U.S.–Polish cooperation, Poland was still excluded from the VWP, disabling these visitors to apply for ESTA for USA but instead letting them apply for US visa.
Moreover, Poland has already signed all of the necessary security and travel agreements needed to gain admittance into the program. The only obstacle holding it back is its 9.8 percent visa refusal rate. Now, with Poland’s overstay rate at around 2 percent in 2010, which is incredibly low compared to the total visa overstay rate of approximately 40 percent, this change should make an advancement to the country’s admittance and would serve as a better overall metric for the program.
As both Kirk and Quigley are willing to discuss the admittance of Poland to the program, this could serve as a reminder to the rest of Congress that it is well past time to do better to admit Poland into the VWP.
Source:
blog.heritage.org
