Eliminate the visa requirement for Colombians traveling to the United States It is a possibility that the National Government try to make it come true. The objective is to get our country to enter the Visa Waiver Program (VWP).
This work implicitly requires exhaustive studies by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Given this requirement, the Colombian ambassador to the United States, Luis Gilberto Murillo, began talks to explore the possibility of a visa waiver and that Colombia can be part of the Visa Waiver Program (VWP).
The meeting was attended by the migration director ColombiaCarlos Fernando García, as well as representatives of the National Police, the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, the Civil Aeronautics and other dependencies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
What is the Visa Waiver Program?
This program grants citizens of certain countries the possibility of traveling to the United States for tourism or business for a maximum period of 90 days, without having to apply for a visa.
Currently, only 40 countries are part of the program, and of the Latin American countries, only Chile has this benefit.
People traveling under the visa waiver program must apply for and receive a travel authorization approved through the ESTA system (Electronic System for Travel Authorization, in English) to travel to the United States.
The five fundamentals to access the visa waiver according to DHS
1. Counterterrorism.
2. Law enforcement.
3. Traveler detection.
4. Immigration law enforcement.
5. Travel/identity documents.
Also, to participate in the program, Colombia must reduce the annual denial of visas to less than 3%.
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