The wait times for US Tourist Visas for Indians is 1-2 years right now. I have a friend who applied 3 months and her interview date is in January 2025.
I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't complain about this, but I find it funny that Americans are mad about spending the 30 minutes and $30 to fill out a form. Seems entitled.
India and the US are not roughly on par economically, standard of living wise, etc. There are lots of reasons why tighter restrictions are needed here that don't apply between the US and Europe, where it's really just political tit for tat.
The context is missing here. It is important to remember that many Americans visit the EU for short stays and tourism, while in the US, some people from various countries, including India, come for longer durations or even with intentions to stay permanently. The sheer volume of visa applications and varying lengths of stay could contribute to longer processing times.
Many Indians also want to visit the EU/US for short days and tourism, or for other very valid and legitimate reasons. These can be with a long history of not breaking visa norms of other countries, and yet face delays of 2+ years. It's not that these delays cannot be reduced; there's just no will to do that.
It makes my blood boil that I have to endure a disproportionate burden of proof on myself:
- demonstrate good financial status, have already booked tickets and accommodation (which might end up becoming a sunk cost because a bad visa result came too near to my travel date, making refunds impossible) even though visa isn't guaranteed
- a very long list of paperwork to complete and sort
- wait for multiple years to boot for an appointment where my application can get rejected, sometimes for really frivolous reasons
just to ensure I am there for, say, my brother's graduation, a moment which will come only once in my lifetime. Meanwhile, people from other countries and with a way worse profile than mine can walk into the same country, no questions asked. They don't have to demonstrate that they're really great people with absolutely no intention of staying there for ever. In fact they can even make that decision on a whim; what's there to stop them from staying permanently in the other country even if it's not for a "good" cause?
Don't treat people as criminals/paragons of virtue solely based on the country they come from.
as a US citizen, I'll give you the straight truth. it comes down to racism. indians come in and pretty much dominate wherever they go. most hotels and gas stations (and hospitals and pharmaceuticals) are indian/Chinese dominated industries and the whites need some level of protectionism to compete.
I try not to get involved in these kinds of discussions. But you lobbed this out there, so I feel like this community can benefit from a personal story.
I'm not white. I'm human. Or just: I am.
I had an Indian friend growing up. Wonderful man. One of the few in our predominantly white township.
His parents owned a hotel.
And they inspired a desire for education and learning in him.
I ran into him in the university town of one of the top state universities one day after being rejected myself. It was awkward, but it also made me happy.
I recognize there are maybe cultural differences with strict parenting styles. But regardless, that hotel gave his parents a space to raise a damn nice kid who made something of himself.
What you provided is not context though, just some word salad rationalization. Visas are a function of bilateral and diplomatic relations which in turn are a function of the power differential between the two parties. That's all there is to it.
"Like EU citizens applying for ESTA when visiting the US, citizens of the United States will also have to fill an online form and pay a nominal fee when visiting Europe."
Not saying such restrictions should be encouraged, but the same has been needed to visit the US for a long time.
Europe, however
, lets its citizens re-enter a border using automated password gates without the need for a "Global Entry" subscription (in the US, that's a product you pay for to be face-scanned and skip immigration lines when coming back home.)
I like the fact that there is finally reciprocity with the US citizen having to experience the same shitty rules as when we travel there.
But I'm a little bit sad that we will impose the same thing to other visa free travelers.
First these countries will probably want to do that also in reciprocity. And secondly it is another marker of the slow decay of public liberties in Europe and the raise of the dictatorial surveillance society.
I remember traveling to European countries in the early 80s and needing to cross immigration at each border, but not having to secure a Visa ahead of time for most if any. You were given 30 to 90 days depending on the country.
Remember though, the US is one of only three countries (Eritrea, Myanmar are the other 2) that taxes its own citizens even if they have not lived in the US for years. I lived in SE Asia over 6 years. I've also worked in KSA and other areas, so I know. Amazingly, you can get a tourist's Visa to KSA online in like a half hour if that as a US citizen. A working Visa is a bit more difficult.
On another note, I believe Europe is in for a big downwards economic spiral worse than for the US, and does not have the geographic isolation or resource richness and flat, free land availability of the US, so this is just another dent to their future income via tourism. The war in Ukraine is not helping that to be sure. I live overseas for years and had to deal with US immigration for my wife, so I know it is lop-sided, but per Hillary Clinton and others with the same viewpoint, it is because the US Passport is the most valuable in the world. It was argued that the advantages bestowed upon US citizens needs to be met with things like FATCA, pressures on foreign countries to report US citizens banking/financial information to the US, and the once-nominal fee for rescinding your US Passport is now more punitive should you choose to give up your US citizenship.
Given the dominance of the US in NATO over the past several decades, where Europe could save money on military spending to boost their own economies, all the while having the world's largest superpower be there to step in when needed, or so goes the theory, maybe wishing to include the US and its tourists in the general Visa rule is not a great idea at this time? We've got millions of illegal immigrants coming to the US every year[1] with Germany, the UK, France, and Italy receiving the lion's share of the EU (sans UK).
> Remember though, the US is one of only three countries (Eritrea, Myanmar are the other 2) that taxes its own citizens even if they have not lived in the US for years.
These are the kinds of things that can be changed relatively quickly if the government wanted to. I understand for people financially struggling now that isn't encouraging. But there are other factors like access to resources and people that are important.
It's those and the larger term trends that we see that can inform personal choices on immigration.
I know, anticipating hypothetical tricky legislation switches seems like a waste of time. I'm truly sorry I'm wasting your time on that.
I really hate this re-introduction of visas but under a different name. Like if you want all foreign visitors to get a visa, say it! Don't say it's visa free but also make me fill out a form to get permission to enter that may or may not be accepted.
I once had to go in a business trip to Australia, together with some coworkers, because we were employed by an Australian company, for a meeting at the headquarters of the company.
We were supposed to travel visa-free to Australia (at that time, meanwhile it seems that Australia has introduced visas for all countries). Nevertheless, Australia required some kind of electronic approval without which we could not enter the country, for which you had to apply exactly like for any visa.
After a few months of satisfying extremely invasive requests for documents from the Australian authorities, e.g. with complete details about all operations from our banking accounts for several months, the delays for issuing the "non-visa" travel approval have been so great that we missed the deadline and we had to cancel the trip.
If there would have been an official requirement for visas, it could not have been worse than the "visa-free" travel. Of course, while the Australian authorities did all they could to discourage foreign visitors, the Australian citizens were able to really travel visa-free, because the other states fulfilled their obligations, according to the agreements signed with Australia.
Now, when everybody requests visas, at least all are treated equally, without special privileges for the citizens of countries like USA or Australia, which have never fulfilled their promises to treat the foreigners in the same way as their own citizens are treated.
After reading "Persepolis Rising" and getting a heavy dose of what propaganda and pacifying messaging from authorities, this reads like it's from that book.
Make sure to mention how easy, super not-inconvenient it is. Include some initial skeptics who now have no problem with it. Resistance is indeed futile.
(I don't think this is the height of tyranny - there are much worse everyday systems harming us. My commentary is on the government press release dressed as a news article.)
EU really needs to re-do the whole Schengen process for citizens of countries like India. Right now, you need to show booked tickets, hotel reservations, Insurance with very specific terms and a detailed itinerary even before you've been granted the visa. And after all that documentation nightmare, you get granted the visa for the exact specific dates you've requested. God forbid your plans change even by a day or two.
By contrast, the Travel Visa to US, while also a painful process, at least grants you multiple entry visa thats valid for 10 years.
Until quite recently, Ukrainian citizens had to endure the same gruelling process to be allowed into the Schengen zone. To travel to the US, a visa is still needed today.
My point: Ukrainians are almost all non-brown, and it is a very destructive habit to inject the skin color into every issue.
Travel and immigration restrictions were lifted from Ukraine for getting invaded by Russia. If it wasn't for this, their EU accession process would've remained dead in the water due to severe structural and societal issues that are now being entirely overlooked. Other countries that have been way up the queue aren't getting the same preferential treatment for some reason.
There's war and suffering in Ukraine. But there's even more war and more severe suffering in other parts of the world. They don't get the same "open arms" treatment though (often, it's where brown people live).
I have to say I agree with this. Ukraine has very different values than the EU and corruption/oligarchy is still rampant.
We have to be careful which countries we let in as we have already made this mistake with Hungary. Right now there isn't even a way to kick them out again. The idealistic view that joining the EU will automatically fix their society is clearly wrong. If you see other eastern European countries like Romania where even their own president protests (in vain) on the street for their corrupt government to go it's clear to me that this process should be stricter.
But all this seems to be overlooked in favor of geopolitical concerns (giving Putin the finger and territorial expansion)
This is not about the Ukrainian people by the way. They're mostly nice except the Russian-friendly ones in the East. But it's their government and economic model. It's the same way the average Russian doesn't even like Putin but has no way to remove him.
Zelensky is a good guy but he can't fight the war and fix his country at the same time. Also we have to worry about who comes next, after all Hungary was a decent country when they joined, Orban only came later.
Actually they come to work here on contract for jobs that white people refuse to do (like in agriculture, delivery). The EU offers good working conditions. It has mostly been a positive experience and I am going to treat these people with respect. Most of them I've had the pleasure with have been nice and polite, I've seen couriers from Asia put a lot of effort into their jobs and they've also raised awareness of cyclists on public roads. Mostly due to them I no longer get honked/yelled at when riding a bike on public roads.
No, we don't need to change that. You're on a tourist visa. You arrive on day X and you leave on day Y. If circumstances change due to events out of your control, then there are solutions for that.
You want better terms, improve the situation in India. Favorable terms are given to citizens of countries where they're unlikely to violate the terms of their visa, like overstaying the validity of their visa.
<If circumstances change due to events out of your control, then there are solutions for that.>
There literally are no good solutions to that. I went through the whole rigmarole of getting a schengen visa for a specific week and then had to postpone my trip by a week due to change in business plans. The 'solution' was to get a second schengen visa for that second week, by submitting the same documents again and paying the same fee again. Which involves showing up at a consulate in-person. Which are not in every city. (source: https://manila.diplo.de/ph-en/service/visa/faq-gq-change-vis...)
Literally nothing would be different if they decided to grant you the visa for the duration you asked for but allowed you the flexibility to make that trip within a time window. You would still ensure I'm in EU for a limited time, but allowed some flexibility.
Secondly, none of the measures like asking me to show booked hotels or booked flights actually ensures I wont be overstaying. I could very well show you all of those and overstay if i wanted to do so illegally. All it does is forces people to shell out of a bunch of money even before they can be sure I'll be granted the visa.
you seem to have strong sense of ownership on your land, maybe your ancestors owned that land for very long time, but keep in mind that your ancestors came from somewhere and nobody denied them the right to stay and live
Around the 13000 years. The previous significant inhabitants left or were wiped out due to the ice age. The idea of a country was established in 800AD.
The concept of visas may not have existed at that point in time, but you were at the mercy of those in power. If they didn't like you, they'd banish you from their lands or worse.
The modern rules are entirely based on statistics. How many overstay their visa. How many get denied a visa. Are compromised passports swiftly dealt with. India doesn't live up to the rules for easy visas.
You go sit in the airport after your passport has been exit stamped. No, you can't stay in the country after the expiration of your visa, unless you have a very good reason to do so.
The problem is that journalism is very difficult to do because people are now used to free news, so they have to do these click and bait patterns that really suck and the only thing they do is generate hate.
To the downvoters: Give a different opinion if you don't agree. Like it or not, it is the truth. My sister is a journalist.
While I don't disagree about the state of journalism, you can only fit so much information in the headline, and the similarity to what visitors to the US have to do is called out in the article. The headline itself in this case seems like a fair and accurate summary of the story.
This has been 100% expected. It is bacause of lack of US visa waiver to certain EU members (Romania and Bulgaria for example). It's the same for Canadians who travel to the EU and who's country lifted the mentioned restrictions.
As much as I like Americans, you have to understand that you were priviledged before and that this privilege has ended because of your country's visa policy treating EU citizens differently.
I wasn't aware EU travellers had to get a visa to enter the US.
When I flew to the EU and eastern Europe in 2019, I didn't need a visa. I didn't need to tell anyone my exact dates and itinerary. I paid for a ticket, had a passport, and went.
First the US required visa-free travellers to get travel authorisation beforehand, and pay $10 for the privilege, then Canada did the same, South Korea also started doing it, I'm sure plenty of other countries too, and now it's the EU.
I wonder when the EU will start reciprocating on all the financial reporting bullshit that banks have to do when dealing with US persons.
Meanwhile the eu is also preventing certain member states from free travel by not allowing them to join schengen. All thanks to two countries playing power, one of which being a russia appeaser. Not much news on that.
Nope, it’s austria. Awash with russian money and corruption. Had a few former politicians dancing with putin’s cronies (some literally), and are still very much pro russia.
Netherlands and Austria are keeping Romania and Bulgaria out of Schengen even though Romania (at least) meets the necessary requirements to join for the last few years.
I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't complain about this, but I find it funny that Americans are mad about spending the 30 minutes and $30 to fill out a form. Seems entitled.