The campaign to send letters and emails to the White House demanding the U.S. drop visas requirements for Poles traveling to the United States is taking on force. Polish radio stations in Chicago and New York joined in the effort last Wednesday, even though political activists believe that legislative changes in this respect will be as difficult to achieve as Poland’s membership to NATO.

Polish radio New York 910AM and Chicago’s Radio Rytm and 1020 WNVR will encourage their listeners to participate. “Of course we will inform our listeners,” Kamila Dworska, program director of Chicago radio stations, told Nowy Dziennik.

The initiative also caught the attention of some Polish residents in New York and New Jersey. “I will certainly send a letter, even though I believe that Americans will be afraid of a mass migration of Polish citizens, who would like to stay here illegally,” said Jerzy Piotrowski, a doctor in Hillsboro, NJ.

Representatives of the Bush administration state that the likelihood of Poland becoming the 28th country allowed to take advantage of visa-free traffic is unlikely in the near future. “The decision in this matter is in the hands of Congress. The basic criterion for qualifying a country to participate in visa-free traffic program is an indicator of 3 percent or less visa application rejections,” said Kelly Shannon, spokesperson for the Bureau of Consular Affairs of the State Department. Presently, the indicator for Poland is 40 percent. “Theoretically, say that Congress is in favor of qualifying Poland as another privileged country, but we still need a majority vote from the legislators,” says Shannon.

Marek Siwiec, director of the Polish National Security Bureau, told Nowy Dziennik: “It’s a very good time to write letters to President Bush. In the election year all presidential candidates read letters more carefully than at other times. Sending these appeals to the White House will work in the interest of Poles and Polish Americans. Poles who live in the United States would like to travel freely back and forth from Poland, and, to a large extent, the ability to do so is in the hands of the president of the United States.”

Political activists believe that the initiative has to be conducted over a long period of time. “Poland joining NATO also seemed unrealistic at the beginning,” says Maciej Wierzynski, editor in chief editor at Nowy Dziennik, who initiated the letter-writing campaign together with Alex Starozynski, editor-in-chief of AM New York” newspaper.

For Professor Zbigniew Brzezinski, there is a symbolic meaning to the visa requirement changes. “The fact that a number of other countries, such as France and Germany, are more privileged undermines Poland’s status as one of the U.S.’s main allies,” said the former advisor to the Polish National Security Department to Nowy Dziennik.

Many of the people interviewed believe that success can be attained gradually. “I think that it would be most realistic to ask that Poles be able to travel to the United States without visas for a trial period of time,” commented Jan Nowak–Jezioranski. “Then, Polish citizens traveling within that period of time would know that any abuse of the program would have serious consequences for all Polish citizens.”

Radoslaw Sikorski, former Polish Minister of International Relations, current president of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, and director of the New Atlantic Initiative, shared his opinion from Iraq: “I visited a camp in Babylon. Polish soldiers there are really appalled by the fact that while their life is at stake in the war on terrorism, Americans are making the visa requirements more difficult for their compatriots. I hope that President Kwasniewski stops playing at being a good boy and doesn’t return from Washington D.C. empty-handed.”