Posted on 10/27/21
| News Source: Times of Israel
The United States is considering adding Israel and three other countries to its visa waiver program, a top US government official said on Tuesday.
“We have four candidates in the pipeline: Israel, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania,” said US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, according to Reuters. “We’re very, very focused on the program,” he added.
Israel has long been lobbying to be added to the US visa waiver program, which would enable all Israeli citizens to visit the United States for up to 90 days for tourism or business. Currently, any Israeli seeking to travel to the US, even briefly, must go through a visa application process.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett raised the issue when he meet US President Joe Biden in the White House in August. Biden said at the time that the pair were “going to direct our teams to work toward Israel fulfilling the requirements of the visa waiver program and get that done.”
According to the US Department of Homeland Security, the program “utilizes a risk-based, multi-layered approach to detect and prevent terrorists, serious criminals, and other mala fide actors from traveling to the United States.”