The Bushmeister will announce today — if he hasn’t already — that Korea would enter the US Visa Waiver Program, allowing Koreans to stay in the United States for up to 90 days without a visa.
The will likely take effect in mid-November.
Whether this will allow illegal Chinese immigrants to avoid costly layovers in France, I don’t know.
On the other hand, I was listening to an interview with the lieutenant governor of Hawaii a couple of days ago, and he seemed quite excited.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Slight tourism boost to the economy? At least for Hawaii, LA, and NY…
Is the situation for Americans in Korea going to change too?
Right now Americans are given 30 days (though they can apply for another 60 at the immigration office). Will the policy be changed so we can get 90 days straight away on entry?
There goes the neighborhood.
i can finally show my lady where i grew up … as long as the Korean government gives her a new passport.
oops…
According to the article it will work both ways. Ignore my previous question.
“Slight tourism boost to the economy? At least for Hawaii, LA, and NY…”
With a bad economy and horrible exchange rates for Koreans, don’t bet on it. With the news of IMF time filling the Korean news, this bit of news is lost in the headlines.
Y’know, if I were in charge, there’s no way I’d have let this pass, not with all the human trafficking the Korean mob does through California. But it’s such a boon to me personally, it’s hard to be anything but thrilled.
# 1,
Last time I checked HI, CA and NY were still part of the union.
I agree with cm. The waiver won’t be as beneficial as first thought in the near term.
This will be a real boon for the Korean massagy places in the U.S.
Wasn’t the requirment is to have a new passport which would be more difficult to forge , so why worry? And I don’t think the US has lowered its screening bar ever,its just changing lineup from in front of Embassy to immigration officer booths in any entering port. Don’t they have more power? They could even arrest any Korean as a terrorist,no? Or was it just only in the movie thing?
However the visa waiver program will. take tourist dough form Canadian share of pie. Regarding chinese business, We all know that Chinese already have a solutions for the new program it just matter of time and methods.
This has been a long time coming. In my opinion, it is potentially good for both countries. For every Korean trying to overstay or engage in prostitution, smuggling, or other criminal activity, there will be many dozens more spending tourist dollars, studying English, doing legitimate business, and, in all probability, getting a better impression of the United States than they previously had.
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