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I wonder how this will work for visa waiver programs like the ESTA. I have family visiting next year and if they have to pay an extra $1k, it won’t happen.
by thepaulmcbride 1y ago
I wonder how this will work for visa waiver programs like the ESTA. I have family visiting next year and if they have to pay an extra $1k, it won’t happen.
- pyb 1y agoNo fee according to TFA
- xnorswap 1y agoWhere does it say that? ESTA doesn't appear and searching waiv only turns up: > The fee applies to all visitors who need nonimmigrant visas to enter, and cannot be waived. Which sounds like the opposite of "no fee"?
- dmurray 1y agoESTA is not a visa. It's specifically the process to enter America for people who do not need a visa.
- rwmj 1y agoIt's called a visa waiver, but it's effectively a lightweight visa process. Look at what it involves, not what it is called.
- dragonwriter 1y agoIt is a lightweight pseudo-visa process, but it does not involve anything which is actually legally a visa, so a program that is attached to non-immigrant visas does not apply to it. What things are called in law matters quite a lot.
- rwmj 1y agoFor sure, I'm not disputing this.
- testing22321 1y agoESTA is just the authorization to apply, nothing to actually get you into the country. With an ESTA in hand, an eligible visitor must get an I-94 visa waiver at the border for $6. Even with a valid ESTA this can be denied. Source: at this point I’ve had 4 dozen of them over the last two decades.
- dragonwriter 1y agoThe visa waiver program does not require those eligible to get non-immigrant visas (hence the phrase “visa waiver”), so if the scope of the new program is, in fact, “all visitors who need non-immigrant visas”, those eligible for visa waivers would be outside its coverage.