Philadelphia Immigration Lawyer Blog

Citizens of Estonia and Latvia are on their way to being able to travel visa-free to the United States. On March 12, 2008, each country signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. on visas and increased air security which will eventually lead to visa-free travel for their citizens to the U.S. under the Visa Waiver Program.

The bilateral visa waiver deals are controversial with European Union officials based in Brussels who want to be the sole negotiators in convincing the U.S. to extend the Visa Waiver Program to all 27 EU member nations. They are not happy with bilateral deals like these. But Estonia and Latvia are only doing what the Czech Republic did earlier this year and what Hungary is expected to do later this year. They are among the 12 countries that have joined the EU since 2004 (all former communist nations in eastern Europe) that are frustrated with Brussels’ slow progress on the issue of visa waivers.

The bottom line is that by the end of this year citizens of Estonia and Latvia should no longer need visas to travel to the United States.

The Visa Waiver Program, which was established in 1986, allows nationals of certain countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa. The whole point is to eliminate unnecessary barriers/red tape to travel and encourage tourism. Countries qualify for the program if they do things such as provide reciprocal visa-free travel for U.S. citizens, issue secure machine-readable passports and have a very low rate of nationals who are denied admission to the U.S. or who otherwise violate the terms of their admission to the U.S.