A large group of Colombians would be the first to receive this benefit with which their trips to the North American country would be much easier to do.
While progress is being made in the United States to stop asking Colombians for a visa to enter that country, Ambassador Luis Gilberto Murillo gave two ideas about the first people with whom a pilot plan for the measure would be sought.
Although it will surely be a long process, the Colombian ambassador to the United States assured that the option is being considered that a large group can have this benefit that would eliminate the first major obstacle to travel to the United States.
The beneficiaries would be those Colombians who constantly make trips to the North American country. They are those people, says Murillo in El Tiempo, “who have been coming to the US for years, who have never had a problem, have not stayed and do not want to. This group of people should already have an exemption because it has been shown that they do not have any additional intentions to come to this country and carry out their tourism and business activities”.
And it is that there are many Colombians who go to the United States to visit relatives, do business, travel to different states or stay for a few months and then return to the country, but after their visa expires, they must do all the paperwork. and they spend long periods of time without being able to travel to that territory. In fact, currently the appointment is delayed and that is why they make a recommendation.
The second idea has not yet been discussed with the North American country, but it would be a virtual pre-entry from Colombia. Murillo explains that it would be for people to go through the “immigration process of reviewing documents, which is called pre-entry, once in Colombia. That already happens with countries like Canada.”
To go to Mexico there is also a similar one and although there they do not ask Colombians for a visa, they do have to fill out a virtual form with which the documents are loaded onto a page. However, this has been useless because the authorities in that country continue to deny admission to dozens of people every week.
Although there is no certainty that this will happen, the Colombian ambassador is working together with the United States authorities on this proposal that for a few months has excited many travelers.
Murillo points out that this is a process that “takes years”, but it is one of the big bets that he has during his time at the Embassy.
“We are discussing it. The truth is that we have some differences and we are working on them. There is a lot of openness from the United States government for us to discuss it,” he stated.
For now there is no further progress on how the talks are going, but the idea of not asking Colombians who constantly travel to the United States for a visa does not seem far-fetched.