Online visitors only, please

As of yesterday, individuals who are permitted to travel to the US without a visa (on the visa waiver program) must register with the Department of Homeland Security using the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA). Previously, ESTA had been largely voluntary.

The ESTA questionnaire collects the same information as the previous paper application (I-94W), and there is no fee involved. Normally, travel is approved immediately, although some ineligible travelers will be notified to apply for a visa at the local US consulate. Pre-registration is good for 2 years and can be renewed online.

The ESTA system is online only, so unplugged travelers will require assistance from wired friends, family, or, most likely, travel agents. Some observers expect other countries to make life more difficult for US travelers in the future, as retribution for increasingly onerous entry requirements.

Bring me your tired, your poor, your internet connected

Speaking of the visa waiver program, effective January 12, 2009, all travelers planning on entering the US under the visa waiver program (i.e., without a visa) will need to register online prior to leaving their home country. The program is free for the moment, although in this economy all bets are off (and DHS expressly reserved the right to impose a fee at some later date).

See this DHS Fact Sheet (pdf) for more information.

Visa-free Vítáme Vás

I’ll never forget my first trip to the Czech Republic (then still Czechoslovakia). It was snowing, and the normally 8-hour bus ride from Munich to Prague took over 14 hours, almost ten of which were just to get to the Czech border. When we did finally arrive at the border, the guards came in very brusquely and demanded all of our passports. The communist world was in the process of breathing its last death rattle at the time, but the border patrol was no less grim and unsmiling. Hence my surprise when the guard took my passport, looked at me, smiled, and told me to stay on the bus because I didn’t need a visa. The rest of the bus, neighbors and fellow Europeans, were none too happy about this show of favoritism, and left the bus into the cold, wet snow grumbling and moaning about our good fortune.

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but effective yesterday, November 17, 2008 visitors to the US from the Czech Republic can enter the US without a visa, as can citizens of Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Republic of Korea, and the Slovak Republic. The US visa waiver program has been extended to include those countries, meaning that citizens entering for less than 90 days on business or pleasure can travel without obtaining a visa beforehand.

So, to any visitors from the Czech Republic, a warm Vítáme Vás! For more, see this DHS Fact Sheet.

Verify through E-Verify

As most employers know, the US government has long struggled with how best to ensure that employers hire only legal, documented workers. From the I-9 form to no-match letters from the Social Security Administration, officials have been waging a tough war against unauthorized employment, one which they’ve largely been losing. Enter E-verify, the governments new(ish) and largely voluntary online system for checking social security numbers against the Department of Homeland Security databases.

According to the DHS website, “E-Verify is free and voluntary, and is the best means available for determining employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers.” The program’s most compelling selling point to date is that voluntary use of e-verify protects the employer against a later determination that the employee was not authorized to work. Effective January 15, 2009 E-verify won’t be voluntary any more, at least not for federal contractors. The general consensus seems to be that mandatory use for the rest of us is only a matter of time.