Getting a visa in the Eastern Caribbean to travel to the United States to spend time with relatives or to do business isn't as difficult as many people claim.
As a matter of fact, more than 80 percent of the people who applied for non-immigrant tourist visas last year received them.
And that's true despite heightened U.S. fears about global terrorism and relatively tough security measures Washington has introduced since 9/11.
According to official figures released to the Carib News by the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown [Barbados], which covers seven Eastern Caribbean nations, 92 percent or 11,358 Bajans out of the 12,319 persons who applied for tourist or business visas last year actually got them. Looked at another way only 961, or 7.8 percent, of the applications were rejected.
At the same time, while the visa approval rates for the rest of the Eastern Caribbean, specifically Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines were slightly lower than Barbados'; they averaged 80 percent in 2009. The highest approval rate for those countries was Antigua, with 87 percent, while the lowest was Dominica, 79.7 percent, and Grenada 80.5 percent.
"The good news is that the vast majority of people who do come [apply] actually do receive their visas," said Brent Hardt, chargé d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy. "Our issuance rate generally is over 80 percent. In Barbados, it is a little higher and in other countries, it is a little lower."
Of the 46,586 applications for the "non-immigrant visas" from people in the Eastern Caribbean, 40,421 were approved. The overall rejection rate was 11.7 percent.
"I think that's a pretty good rate for the region and I think we have made steps in our embassy to upgrade the service, moving to appointments so that people know that when they come in, they have appointments at a certain time.
"We try to facilitate them," Dr. Hardt, a career diplomat, explained. "We mail passports back to people [in the Eastern Caribbean] with visas in them, using one of the couriers to bring them to their door. We are doing a lot of things to make that process as smooth as it can be."
While he conceded that the procedure could at times be a bit "cumbersome and sometimes difficult," the embassy had to deal with realistic "security concerns" that were "quite urgent and paramount."
In any case, though, the American diplomat said, "there is a balance we are trying to strike" between meeting U.S. security interests and satisfying people's needs.
"I think we are doing a pretty good job," he insisted.
Interestingly, Hardt doesn't believe the failed terrorist attempt by a Nigerian to blow up a U.S. commercial passenger plane last Christmas Day as it neared Detroit and the increased scrutiny it triggered would have any negative impact on the visa process for the Eastern Caribbean.
"That really wouldn't have any effect on the way we issue visas or anything like that," he said. "That wouldn't have any effect on people traveling to the [United] States."
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old who had been spending time in Yemen with Al Qaeda terrorist sympathizers, boarded a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit, but failed to ignite the chemicals sewn into his underpants designed to blow up the plane and kill all on board. Experts said it was pure luck that he was unsuccessful and held by passengers. He is now in a U.S. jail awaiting trial.
As for the proposed increase of $9 in the U.S. visa application fee, Hardt said that the matter was now "out for public comment" and a final figure hadn't been determined.
That would be fixed after the period for public reaction has ended and the new rate is published in the Federal Register, he explained.
