US may end visa-free travel for Europeans

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US may end visa-free travel for Europeans
US immigration stamp in a British passport

The Trump administration is considering a change in visa-waiver system

By Agencies

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Published: Thu 20 Apr 2017, 7:31 PM

Last updated: Thu 20 Apr 2017, 9:45 PM

Europeans travelling to the US, be ready for some hiccups. Thanks to the Trump administration, the US visa-waiver system could soon see a change.
The existing rules do not require Britons to obtain a visa. But US Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly underlined that it should be reviewed against the backdrop of rising terror attacks. "We have to start looking very hard at that [visa waiver] programme," he was quoted as saying by the Independent.
The system won't be done away with completely, but Kelly said the current set-up needed to be looked at again. "Not eliminating it and not doing anything excessive," he pointed out during a speech in Washington, adding "but look very hard at that programme".
Voicing his apprehensions, Kelly said Daesh fighters were using the visa-waiver system to sneak into the US. He warned America was the "Super Bowl in terms of terrorists. That's where they wanna come [sic]".
The visa-waiver system enables most citizens of participating countries to travel to the US for up to 90 days without first getting a visa. As many as 14 million European citizens enjoyed visa-free travel to the US in 2015, according to a report in the Independent.
This March, the European Parliament voted to scrap visa-free travel for Americans within the EU in the wake of US' failure to agree visa-free travel for citizens of five EU countries - Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania - as part of a reciprocity pact.
 


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