Has there ever been a time when a citizen of the UK required a visa to travel to the US for leisure or business, and if so, how recently was that? Bonus question: how long did that visa take to acquire?
Now, of course, there’s the Visa Waiver program which allows British citizens to travel to the US for up to 90 days without needing a visa (http://london.usembassy.gov/vwp3.html).
I recently had an interesting discussion with my boss who said, on a Thursday “Can you be in New York for this meeting on Monday?” and I had to explain that, as an Indian citizen living in the UK, I would have to get the company to sponsor me for a visa, and the entire process might take anywhere up to 4 weeks. She wasn’t happy, but backed down in the face of immovable bureaucracy. I wondered how recently she might have been in the same situation, and how long it might have taken for her. Idle curiosity.
I got one in 1987, for a holiday. In those days you could apply by mail and didn’t have to go to the Embassy. When I went back in '92, the waiver program was in operation but I used the unexpired visa anyway.
According to your cite, not all UK citizens are eligible for the visa waiver program- see the other requirements section.
So, for example, any UK citizen who has ever been charged with an offence of ‘Moral Turpitude’ or controlled substance offences would have to obtain a visa.
British citizens need visas now - the visa waiver programme no longer exists. It’s easy to get, fairly cheap and you can apply online, but it is still a visa.
ETA: It is listed as being part of the visa waiver programme, but on the paper part you have to print out and carry it does say that it’s a visa.
According to State it is not a visa. Persons from VWP participating countries have the option of getting a visa if they would like, and some of them must get visas (the aforementioned restrictions.) Everyone else just needs an authorization from the “Electronic System for Travel Authorization.”
It may say the word visa on the document somewhere, and may even be considered some form of pseudo-visa, but at least according to state it doesn’t appear they consider it a full visa since they use this language:
It would be strange for state to say you could apply for a visa if you want, if the ESTA authorization was truly a visa their word choice makes no sense.
I sadly cannot recall who it was (a small voice suggests it might have been Bertrand Russel) who was travelling to the US and against the question on the card asking, “Do you intend to overthrow the Government of the United States by force?” wrote, “Sole purpose of visit.”
" The insults on TV were nothing to those in private, such as a wedding reception at which a guest remarked that the bride and groom would make an ideal couple. Harding replied “you should know, you’ve slept with both of them”. "
UK citizens have to get a visa to visit the US? Would a passport not suffice? I’ve travelled, for instance, to Costa Rica several times with just a passport, including as recently as 2008. For that matter, I travelled there with nothing but a birth certificate prior to November '03.
UK citizens who are making a short (less than 90 days) visit to the US for tourism or business don’t require a visa as such. However, the new ESTA system does somewhat resemble a visa in that you need to apply in advance and pay a small fee. There are a few exceptions - people who’ve been convicted of crimes and so on.
Prior to the UK’s joining the Visa Waiver Program in 1988, though, its citizens did need visas to visit the US.
Ah, a useful data point. Do you have any recollection (long shot, I know) how long it took between applying for the visa and it being granted? A few days? A week? Some weeks? I know it’s asking a bit much to remember a specific incident from 1987, but you appear to be the only person with personal experience of this system!
Yes, but that’s going to be a small minority. Most British citizens can travel for up to 90 days without a visa. And now I want to know what defines “moral turpitude”. Does drinking paint thinner count?
Excellent! That’s definitely a back in the day event…
Hmmm. Perhaps it’s just been so long that people here have forgotten what a pain it can be to get a visa. I’m looking at at least 4 weeks between internal paperwork and getting an appointment at the embassy, blah blah blah… which I think is one of the essential differences between the ESTA and a visa - with the ESTA you just apply online, about 72 hours in advance. Nothing like the extreme paperwork-wading that you need to do for a visa these days.
Not British, but I’ve had to apply for Visas to the US several times (I’m from Spain). Time can range from a couple of days to several weeks. In one case we were able to walk into the US Embassy in London and get a Visa for another Spaniard who had forgotten he needed to get one… :smack: this was less than 24h before boarding the plane to JFK and we were travelling with a well-known organization, for summer jobs under a “cultural exchange” umbrella. And pre-911.
The US border guards have the authority to deny entry to anyone for any reason and generally, at that point the paperwork to get that changed is a pain. Moral turpitude is such a poorly worded clause that almost anything the guard wants can be considered such.
We had someone where I worked who was drunk and (unwisely) was less than polite and demure going through customs on a business trip to the USA. They denied him entry on the grounds hat he had been convicted of a theft when he was a juvenile. He was in his late 50’s at the time and a moderately high level supervisor. This was before 9-11 and Canadians usually had no difficulty getting into the USA, did not even need passports.
I would suspect based on absolutly nothing that post 9-11 it would take several weeks to get a visa. My mother and I got visas for three countries in one afternoon once; before 9-11. And, we got them for absent family member as well.
That’s really unfortunate. I’m not surprised that such a poorly worded clause is open to abuse. Wikipedia defines moral turpitide as
That doesn’t, of course, address the question of whether there is such a thing as a community standard of justice, honesty and good morals, and if so, which community gets to choose. As I don’t want to stray into GD, that’s clearly a matter for another thread. I was amused to note, however, that Wikipedia goes on to say
I applied for a visa in 1988 when I went to the US on holiday, it took about 2 weeks to come through, once I’d sent the passport off.
When I went in 2000 (on a new passport), no visa, I’m pretty sure I just filled in the form on the plane, all 6 lines of it.
Last October when I visited (on, yet again, a new passport) I had to pay and fill out the ESTA form online beforehand. I know of a couple of people who have been turned back from US Immigration but not sure if they had the ESTA form or, like me in 1990, just rocked up with my passport ( “I’m British donchaknow, let me in, you bloody colonial. Britannia Rules The Waves etc etc”)
Since 9/11 things have changed so much, only a fool thinks that getting into America, especially by air, is going to be a breeze like it once was.
Oh, and US Immigration officers must take lessons in being rude, ignorant and aggressive…until they stamp you through, when they instantly turn into humans again, give you a huge smile and say “Welcome to the US, enjoy your stay”. It really throws you, one minute they are talking to you like you are shit on their shoe, next minute you are a welcome guest. I guess the people who rise to the bait when they are being arseholes are not the kind of people they want wandering around the US.
