Now, under changes to the program that were voted into law as part of the omnibus budget bill last month, some individuals who would otherwise be eligible for the program will instead be required to apply for a visa.
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The new regulations come into effect on Thursday, and will also apply to people who hold dual citizenship of the listed nations.
The new rules apply to European, Japanese and Australian travelers to the United States who have visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria since 2011 and dual-citizens who have citizenship in one of those countries. The Department of Homeland Security said it will offer exemptions to the visa rule on a case-by-case basis, and listed potential exceptions for journalists, humanitarian workers, government officials and “legitimate business-related purposes”.
The visa waiver program provides visa-free travel to as many as 20 million passengers every year coming to the United States from 38 countries, largely in Europe.
He added that dual citizens of European Union countries and those states included in the new guidelines would also be “disproportionately and unfairly affected”.
The biggest question mark concerns groups of individuals that could be exempted from the law, allowing them to continue traveling to the US under the Visa Waiver Program. But they will no longer be able to skip the visa process by registering with the Electronic System for Travel Authorizations (ESTA) like fellow waiver country citizens. Instead, those people – who otherwise would have been eligible to participate in the visa waiver program – will have to obtain a visa through the State Department. “This is not a difference of opinion over statutory interpretation, it is a clear contradiction of the law and the agreement we reached with the White House”. Subsequently, Iran also blamed the US of violating the nuclear accord by penalizing legitimate business travel to Iran.
Iraq and Syria were specifically targeted because the Islamic State occupies significant territory in each of those countries.
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He described the visa requirement as an “inconvenience” that doesn’t affect the vast majority of European travelers.
