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Visa-free travel to Europe for U.S. citizens to end in 2024,requiring ETIAS form
- EduardoBautista 3y agoTitle should be updated to match the article. A travel authorization is not a visa, visa free travel for US citizens will remain.
- mahkeiro 3y agoWhat is the real difference between the 2? One is manual while the other one is highly automated? Given the number of question on an ESTA application, visa to other countries are a piece of cake (and I don’t even talk about visa on arrival). This is just a semantic trick to make people that there is still a visa free travel but this is no more the case.
- Scoundreller 3y agoNot just a semantic trick, but a legal one. A lot of euro countries have treaties with US, Canada, etc. for mutual visa-free travel that pre-date EU. Soooo, they just create something that walks and talks like a visa without calling it one because the treaties never bothered to define what a visa is or isn’t.
- EduardoBautista 3y ago> walks and talks like a visa The requirements for the travel authorizations to Canada, the EU, and the USA are not comparable to an actual visa application. Visas are more expensive, more privacy invasive, and you have to go to an embassy/consulate to get it. All these travel authorizations are really doing is telling the governments "Hey, I am coming over".
- Scoundreller 3y agoSo what dollar threshold makes it a visa? If it’s free, is it not a visa? Over what number of questions makes it a visa? If it’s electronically attached to your passport number, is it no longer a visa?
- EduardoBautista 3y agoIf they ask you the questions on the travel authorization form at the port of entry instead, would it be better? If you get denied the travel authorization, there is a chance you would have been denied in person after a long flight instead without this initial step. They are just asking questions ahead of time.
- Scoundreller 3y agoEU border police has never seemed very interested in asking Canadians or Americans any questions at all in my experience. France and other countries even let us use their e-gates nowadays.
- mahkeiro 3y agovisiting an embassy is not mandatory to get a lot of visa (even a Chinese one) most of the time you just ship your passport with a form that has less invasive question than an ESTA. Nobody but the US require you to give the handle of all your social network account…
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- anigbrowl 3y agoA travel authorization is not a visa OF course it is, it's just a very accessible temporary one. Let's look at an uncontroversial definition of a visa (from Wikipedia): 'A visa is a conditional authorization granted by a polity to a foreigner that allows them to enter, remain within, or leave its territory.' Just because you give things different labels doesn't make them actually different.
- EduardoBautista 3y agoWell, then the USA doesn't issue any visas in this case. Because the only thing that my US tourist visa allows me to do is to show up and ask politely to enter the country. A US visa also does not give you permission to remain within the country, an I-94 does.
- anigbrowl 3y agoI don't see the point of such extreme pedantry. Even the State Department uses 'visa' as a generic term. There are also other countries besides the US, and whichever one you come from probably also uses 'visa' as a generic term on their English-language websites.
- jjgreen 3y agoThere will be fingerprint and face scans on arrival too.
- bsimpson 3y agoI'm a frequent traveler, but I've avoided Global Entry as a minor form of protest. The government doesn't need and shouldn't have my biometrics. I've been reconsidering my position lately, as I've traveled places where biometric registration is compulsory, and the US surely has some deal in place to scoop up all that data.
- TechBro8615 3y agoThey already have your facial biometrics. And if you've had to apply for a visa to another country, you might have been required to submit your fingerprints, which you do through a facility in your home country (so both countries end up with the biometrics).
- elteto 3y agoIf you are a naturalized US citizen the government has your biometrics already, you can't become a citizen without giving them up. If you are a natural born citizen and have a passport the government has your picture. If not, there's the one in your driver's license. If not, a Google/Facebook search might dig one up. So if you don't have a passport, or DL, or social media presence at all then I agree, don't sign up for Global Entry. But otherwise...
- chrisco255 3y agoNo you're not. All that's required to be a naturalized US citizen is to be physically born in the U.S. Or to be born to U.S. citizen parents. They also do not do biometrics for driver's licenses. A bad, 4 year old driver license photo from the local dmv is quite different than having an international database containing irrevocable details about your physiology. Among many lessons in history are the degree to which such details have been abused by those in power.
- Daviey 3y agoCalling it a Visa is hyperbole, even the linked article suggests it is more like a US style ESTA, which the US has forced on us since 2008 (which is only compatible with visa waiver programme). The thing that makes me truly sad, as a UK citizen, I will also need this to travel to Europe since Brexit. It isn't a US-centric requirement, which the headline suggests.
- throwawaymobule 3y agoYou can still fly over to Ireland, and even live there. :) Would take you about five years to get naturalised though.
- xgl5k 3y agoYeah it doesn't seem directed at the US. It applies to 60 countries, including Singapore, which is currently the world's best passport.
- reaperducer 3y agoIt isn't a US-centric requirement, which the headline suggests. I don't think it's surprising that a radio network that serves Americans and is paid for by Americans in part with American taxes should tailor its story for an American audience. Do you also complain that the BBC is too British?
- Daviey 3y agoYou've picked on a single part of my comment, which was more as an informational part to clarify that the headline doesn't tell the whole story. At no point did I make it a complaint.
- londgine 3y agoit's a document that needs to be prepared ahead of time, costs money, and can be denied. what is your definition of a visa if not this?
- justnotworthit 3y ago
- injb 3y agoThe title is a lie and the content of the article is hyberbolic. When the new requirement comes in it'll be the same as it is now for people who visit the US visa-free. The US has had this for years and Canada also has it for non-US citizens.
- Scoundreller 3y agoCanada’s (and previously the USA’s) mental gymnastics was that it was only required for air travel. You can still drive to Canada without an eTA and get entry. You used to be able to drive to USA without an ESTA (for non-Canadians), but USA is even now (or soon to be…) requiring it at land borders. Sounds more and more like a visa.
- mixmastamyk 3y agoAfter being forced to submit face and fingerprints in Asia this summer, and no clue where the data went. I’m thinking my traveling days are over. A shame as travel has been beneficial.
- kredd 3y agoFace and/or fingerprints have been a requirement in in every developed country (including US) since at least 2012. Might be even earlier than that, that's just the clearest memory of myself going through the immigration in Europe. It's a tiny bit different when you're citizen of the country you're entering into, but that's just details. At this point, I live with the expectation that my biometrics are available for sale in some 3rd party data broker, and try to live with having that kind of threat model in my mind. Something something, adapt and survive.
- Scoundreller 3y agoThe sane thing to do would be to discount fingerprint evidence in any judicial (and other) proceeding. It just doesn’t mean much when everyone has a copy of everyone else’s.
- anigbrowl 3y agoFirst, everyone does not have a copy of everyone else's, second it's pretty difficult to fake someone else's fingerprints. Honestly, a lot of tech people just do no seem to live in the real world. Please, take this on as a challenge and try to swap your fingerprints with those of a friend and see if you can fool a forensic technician. The experience will be well worth the small cost of hiring an expert for a few hours.
- mixmastamyk 3y agoNot fingerprints or live facial recognition between trusting countries, no. It’s rather new. I’m also taking about a tourism, not immigration.
- 3y ago
- bananapub 3y agosummary: 1. it's still "visa-free", but increasingly countries are making that shit by requiring an "electronic travel authority" which is not technically a visa but is a bit of imaginary paper you get in exchange for money (e.g. Australia and the US) 2. the US already requires EU citizens to do this exact fucking thing to enter the US: https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/ https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/ 3. the US refused to even grant visa free access at all to some EU citizens (those from Romania and Bulgaria): https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/eu-visa-reciprocity-with-us-and-canada/ https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/eu-visa-reciprocity-wi... it is unfortunate that ~2003 may end up being a high point for ease of travel for citizens of rich countries
- TechBro8615 3y ago2003? How about pre-1920 when passports weren't even required to enter a country?
- rconti 3y agoI'll trade a slightly slower border crossing for faster trains and airplanes.
- TechBro8615 3y agoFair enough. There is a certain romance to crossing the atlantic by ship, though. That's been on my bucket list for a while - IIRC a ticket is on the order of $1-2k for a weeklong journey from UK to US.
- atlasunshrugged 3y agoReally? That seems like a very reasonable cost! Any idea where you book something like that?
- hervature 3y agoAny major cruise line has both trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific cruises. You'll have to book two voyages for a round trip or fly for one of the legs.
- rconti 3y agoReminds me of when I showed up at SFO for my 2nd business trip to Australia, about 90mins before the flight. I had been unable to check in online (united's site gave me an unhelpful error) but I didn't think too much of it. The kiosk at the airport also balked. When I went to talk to a human, he casually asked me if I had a visa/ETA. This totally perplexed me as I didn't remember having to do anything in the past. He told me I'd just need to fill out a web form and "they usually approve it within an hour". Minor panic while I tried to fill out a complicated web form on my iphone at the airport with shaking hands. Ultimately it was approved within about 20 minutes and I had no issues with my flight. Lesson learned! I guess on my previous trip I used my company's travel portal and it must have done the ETA for me automagically, so I never had any awareness I needed such a thing.
- mattlondon 3y ago90 minutes before the international flight? Without checking in before you arrive?! Lesson learnt I hope! Even priority security often takes that long (or longer!) discounting every over queue you have to stand in at an airport.
- rconti 3y agoNope, I spend as little time in the airport as possible. For domestic (US) flights, I target arriving ~30mins before boarding begins if not checking a bag. I typically find security takes around 5 minutes (TSA Pre-Check). I typically fly out of SFO although of course at least half my flights are coming home so I'm flying out of some other random airport. When things are REALLY bad, it's 15 minutes, which still leaves me 15 minutes with nothing to do. And that's before boarding begins. There is still around 30-45 minutes before the gate close, of additional buffer time. I typically fly United and have their lowest tier frequent flier thing (silver), which means I get priority access baggage check for when I am checking a bag (go to kiosk, scan boarding pass, tag bag, drop at baggage drop). But even without that, you sometimes wait 5 minutes for a computer to print your bag tag. For international flights, of course, it's more. Usually 1h+ before boarding begins. Amusingly, my 3 worst experience were when I arrived super early and still barely made my flight. One was an Uber driver from Valparaiso Chile to the Santiago airport, who could NOT find where to drop me off, and I was trying to guide him, but I didn't know any Spanish. No joke, we drove around the runway multiple times. 2 others were on the same trip and both in Germany. Berlin Brandenberg, arrived exactly 2 hours before departure as EasyJet told me to do (counters do not open until 2h before). Bag drop took all of 2 minutes, and then I stood in a security line for at LEAST 1h20mins. Absolutely pants-on-head-insane. Other one was flying out of Frankfurt, opted to splurge on a taxi instead of public transit because I was excited to begin my journey home. Arrived at least 2 hours before the flight. Stood in a Lufthansa bag check line for well over an hour, it went absolutely nowhere. Panicked, found baggage check to have moved to another terminal for international flights (the adjacent bag check windows across the hallway were closed for construction) .. checked bags quickly, and still ended up having to navigate MULTIPLE lines for security that appeared to be correct but were so long (hundreds of meters) that they curved past other signage directing me to other places. What an ordeal.
- xgl5k 3y agoMisleading title, ETIAS is not a visa and it not directed at Americans as it applies to 60 countries including Canada, UK, Australia, Singapore, and South Korea.
- quartz 3y ago> At the heart of ETIAS is an electronic database system to better track who's coming and going. Lots of people online annoyed at having to pay a fee (7 euro) to travel but this is what it's actually about. Curious to know if EU governments are limited in what they can currently do with passport entry/exit data and if this expansion allows them to do more?
- Scoundreller 3y agoI should be exempt from the fee part (EU spouse), but I’m still annoyed by it because my country (Canada) signed treaties with several EU countries granting visa-free travel. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/c067e92d-5a8b-11e9-9151-01aa75ed71a1 https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/c06... I’m kinda confused by the whole “entry-exit” aspect because I thought my passport was scanned in and out of the Schengen already.
- world2vec 3y agoAs an EU citizen I need to apply for an ESTA to travel into US. They get my fingerprints and a photograph besides a scan of my password when applying to said ESTA. Seems it's only fair US citizens get the same treatment? Alas, I'd prefer a much easier entry system for both sides. Aren't we all supposed to be friendly allies?
- User23 3y agoThe general custom in international relations is tit for tat on this kind of thing. Hopefully the EU signals they will be happy to drop or simplify the requirements if the USA agrees to as well.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nikolay 3y agoIt's not fair in the context of American exceptionalism.
- chrisweekly 3y ago"scan of my password" you meant "passport", right?
- sremani 3y ago>> Aren't we all supposed to be friendly allies? We are allies -- but it is not a symmetric alliance.
- 3y ago
- drubio 3y agoThe timing on this is suspect. With all the Airbnb travel and remote work dynamics, it seems like its an effort to clamp down on tax loopholes. It's splitting hairs not calling this a 'visa'. If you have to pay a fee and fill out forms before arrival IT IS intended to regulate foreign entry, which is the definition of a visa, since you're exchanging information with immigration authorities before they let you in.
- cowl 3y agoThis has been under discussion for a lot of time and negotiating with US to remove their Electronic registration system. Europeans are tired of this asymetric treatment and EU can not postpone this anymore. It's tit for tat with the excuse of security.
- rhaway84773 3y agoThis. It’s basically tit for tat by the EU. Its also great timing for them with the massive uptick in tourism they’re seeing
- stanac 3y agoIt's not that simple. Same regulations affect citizens of Balkan counties who don't need visa at the moment.
- raverbashing 3y agoThis was discussed and planned pre-pandemic, this was even delayed due to the pandemic Whatever definition you'd like to use for it applies to ESTA as well
- dukeyukey 3y agoAnd the ESTA absolutely is a visa. I hate this double-standard of _saying_ you've got visa-free travel, you just gotta fill out this form with all your details so we can decide whether or not you've got permission to visit.
- jayflux 3y ago
- cinntaile 3y agoAs long as it's the same when US citizens go to Europe I'm cool with this. If not, they should make it so.
- djohnston 3y agoIf I’m living in the UK i guess I’m still required until I get my passport? That’s sad, ez travelling to Europe was a big draw for moving.
- Scoundreller 3y agoAnywho, for anyone with some EU ancestors, see if you’re eligible to apply for citizenship (or get it recognized if you technically already are one). ETIAS announcements pushed me to start that process and now doing the waiting game.
- cudgy 3y ago“And the pandemic is another one of the many reasons this new requirement has been delayed by decades — there was no need for ETIAS when countries closed their borders to all travel amid fears of spreading COVID-19.” Decades? The pandemic is only a few years old. I guess the writer had to shoehorn the pandemic into their piece somehow.