Most pointedly, I consider he security risk in particular quite alarming, considering the extent to which the domestic media tends to reflect North Korean news sources when endulging in anti-American sentiment. Naturalized citizen, Robert Kim, was lauded as a national hero and his plans to trade highly sensitive defence-related techology to the Korean government were hushed in the Korean press.

Even North Korean refugees are often reluctant to come to South Korea for fear of the North Korean agents here.

Mizar: I am just curious as to whether there is in fact anything in this for America.

Obviously not. Even the Korean immigration whores don’t pretend there is; it’s all about their “rights”.

I like it.

The question was not aimed at anyone in particular, even though it followed your comment sequentially, and neither was it critical of anything you have written.

I am just curious as to whether there is in fact anything in this for America.

Some parts of the United States (e.g., Hawaii, Alaska, California, and Las Vegas) would like the boost to tourism and other commerce that visa-free entry would bring. Hawaii has a two-focus tourism market??apan and California??nd has long been looking to expand its prospects.

Koreans are (were?) the second biggest spenders when traveling abroad (Japanese were #1), so the tourists could “help fuel the U.S. economy” (the Korea Times cites a US Commerce Department source that says 626,000 Koreans visiting the U.S. each year spent around $1 billion in 2004).

Also, according to embassy personnel I’ve talked with, the visa-free entry would free up their people to deal with other more important matters. The same Korea Times article says that the number of visa applications has gone up from 350,000 in 2004 to 400,000 in 2005, and is expected to read half a million in 2006. That’s about 2000 every working day. Many of these are handled, I believe, primarily by travel agents that follow certain guidelines, under a program seen as a forerunner of sorts to a general visa waiver, but the remainder still represent a huge workload for embassy personnel.

Frankly, though, I don’t want the US Congress to authorize this until fall of next year, a month or so before the 2007 presidential elections. I fear a leftist candidacy by preening former Unification Minister Chung Dong-young may include subtule and/or overt appeals to anti-American or anti-Japanese sentiment, and the announcement that South Korea is now in the visa waiver program would take some of the air out of that blimp. An October/November surprise.

[Though not exactly the same as the regular 90-day stay visa waiver being proposed, here is testimony by Representative Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) in 1997 about justification for the bills he and Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) tried to get passed to allow ROK citizens 15-day entry while with tour groups.]

If you think I’ve been writing from Korean shoes, you’re less perceptive than I thought. The question I started out with was why the US should treat Koreans exceptionally, as they keep whining it should.

What I’m referring to are explicit and implicit directions to lighten up generally on the application of the criteria to be applied to determine whether applicants are eleigible for visas, e.g., income and other tests designed to determine whether or not the applicant will abide by the terms of the visa and return to Korea upon expiration.

Basically, what MOJ is asking for is enhanced and continued slackness in enforcing these criteria so that the visa acceptance rejection rate is within the 3% limit for two consecutive years, so that Korea can satisfy that part of the waiver program prerequisites.

In what ways has the US Embassy been bending the rules to grant visas? (I’m asking, not making a rhetorical point). I’ve been involved with several people getting tourist visas or student visas in the United States, and other than them saying this or that document was not enough, so get this thing and come back, there were no special favors. Of course, that’s just personal experience, which is by nature nothing more than anecdotal, but discussions I’ve had with embasssy personnel wouldn’t indicate “tremendous effort” to fudge the rules.