Chile negotiates with the US to maintain the visa waiver program

The Embassy of Chile in the United States He explained this Thursday that he is in talks with the US authorities to maintain the visa waiver program, known as Visa Waiver, after a group of legislators from the North American country questioned his future.

“The meetings continue tomorrow and we hope that the consensus will lead to a result that fully satisfies both parties.”, said the Chilean ambassador in Washington on social networks, Juan Gabriel Valdes.

A subcommittee of the US House of Representatives approved Wednesday to condition funding for the Visa Waiver for Chile to share data on the background of Chileans traveling to the United States.

The ambassador explained that the conversations between the technical teams of the Chilean Government and the Department of Homeland Security of the United States “They have advanced with full consensus on the rules and mechanisms that ensure the expeditious exchange of criminal records of Visa Waiver applicants.”

“Agitation and exaggeration do not help the development of these exchanges. Calm is necessary in the face of ongoing processesValdes said.

Chile is the only country in Latin America that is part of the program, which allows you to enter the United States for tourism, business or transit and stay a maximum of 90 days without carrying a visa, but with an electronic travel authorization.

The Orange County (California) prosecutor, Todd Spitzer, accused Chile in May of refusing to provide information about twenty Chileans who were detained in the United States and who entered the country using this type of visa.

While the president of the Lower House, Republican Kevin McCarthy, last week criticized the program because, in his opinion, many Chilean citizens who enter the North American country through Visa Waiver They belong to organized crime networks.

Source: EFE