The Visa Process

Ambassador Ashe

I share Mr. Fried’s sentiment, as do all of us who work to make Poland and the United States stronger partners and better friends.  In fact, President Bush recently signed into law a change in policy that will make it easier for Poland to meet the requirements for entry into the VWP.

Yet somehow that message, that we all want Poland to qualify for the VWP, that we welcome Polish visitors and are grateful for the strong relations our nations enjoy, is too frequently misreported and leads to widespread misinformation on the street.

The fact is, Poles continue to travel to the United States in increasing numbers for tourism, to study, and for cultural exchange.  In 2004, over 170,000 Poles visited the United States; in 2006 that number was over 182,000.  And due to the increasingly strong zloty, I expect we’ll see even more Polish travelers in New York, the Grand Canyon, Disneyworld, and Tennessee and its beautiful Great Smoky Mountain National Park. and.

The United States continues to be a top destination for scientists and students coming to investigate the mysteries of nature or complete a degree in anthropology.  We see many Polish visa applicants transferring posts within their companies and a steady stream of Polish performers going on tour in the big cities of America or acting in theater productions in Chicago and New Jersey.  The distinct visa types they apply for, “J,” “F,” “L,” and “P,” among others, are not waived under the VWP for any country.

In fact, the VWP really applies only to tourists and businesspeople going to meetings and seminars.  While it offers the obvious benefit of visa-free travel to the United States for tourists and businesspeople, it actually limits the time a traveler is permitted to stay in the United States, from 120 days with a visa, to 90 days if entering under the VWP.

Much ado has been made lately about the number of U.S. visa applicants in Poland, and whether the overall number is rising or falling.  What is frequently lost in the search for a magic number to illustrate upward or downward trends is the fact that U.S. tourist visas are now typically issued for multiple entries with a 10-year validity.

Given that more and more Poles are visiting the United States annually, there is little correlation between the number of visa applications each year and the actual number of travelers. The number of applicants in a given year is more a function of when people’s previous visas have expired than a clear indication of current travel demand.

People observe that the waiting rooms in our Embassy and Consulate are not packed full of applicants, and assume this means less interest in U.S. travel, when what it really reflects is a better organized process.  The current wait for an appointment in the visa section of the Embassy is just two days.  The average time spent in the visa process, from curb to interview to curb again, is only one hour.  These are the lowest wait times in Europe, and among the lowest worldwide.  Our appointment system makes scheduling a visa interview simple and straightforward. We pride ourselves on good customer service, and recently completed an upgrade and refurbishment of the consular section in Warsaw, with a glass-enclosed waiting area to welcome our customers and protect them from the harsh winter elements.

The U.S. Summer Work and Travel Program, or J visa program, is still wildly popular the world over.  Designed to give college students a chance to experience U.S. culture first hand and round out their educations with the experience one can only gain through travel, more than 13,000 Poles participated in the Program in 2007.

Although participants in Summer Work and Travel gain from the employment offered through the Program, the real intent of Summer Work and Travel has always been to expose students to America.  It offers them a full cultural experience while allowing them to earn U.S. dollars to cover the costs of their stay and the chance to meet Americans and travel around the country.  In this regard, it is a huge success, enriching their lives and building a strong foundation of friendship between Poland and America.

We are confident that those students whose goal is an American cultural experience, rather than maximizing summer income will continue to participate in Summer Work and Travel, just as many of their counterparts in the rest of Europe, Japan, and elsewhere continue opt for a summer in the United States rather than a job at or near home.

The American Dream, that notion that a person can come from meager beginnings to make it big through hard work and with the liberty to pursue their aspirations, is alive and thriving in the United States.  We welcome more than one million legal immigrants each year and still find our identity in the “melting pot.”  In fact, many American diplomats here in the Embassy are immigrants or the children of immigrants.

Like European countries, the United States also is challenged by the numbers of undocumented migrants who find their way across the border or choose to overstay a non-immigrant visa.  Their intentions may simply be to find better economic conditions, but coming to, or remaining in, a foreign country without legal permission to be there subverts the efforts of those who wait patiently to be reunited with family and obey the rules of legal migration.  Working without permission to do so or overstaying a visa has never been a component of the American Dream. 

America’s visa policy is most frequently called by officials “Open doors, secure borders.”  I think that tells too little of the story.  Our visa policy actively encourages legitimate travelers, whether tourists or pop musicians or rocket scientists, by making our visa process efficient and transparent.  Our non-immigrant visa process makes it easy for short-term visitors to make repeat trips to U.S. cities, and our immigrant process strives to reunite families and keep the American Dream alive.

I hope that Poland will qualify for the Visa Waiver Program soon.  In the meantime I assure you that America welcomes Poles visiting as tourists, businesspeople, students or sailors.  I can guarantee that we at the U.S. mission in Poland will continue to provide the highest possible customer service to those who choose to apply for visas, and that we will continue to take our responsibility to our Polish allies seriously.

For more information on traveling to the Unites States, please visit our website at http://poland.usembassy.gov/.

Zapraszamy do Ameryki!