Cçao: Want a U.S. visa? Head Caracas

CURAÇAO — Foreigners residing in the Wayward islands will now have to go to Caracas to petition for a visa to enter the US. This was announced by the US consulate.  

Until recently you could simply mail your passport, but seeing as a scan of the fingerprint has been added as part of the new procedures, the petitioner must now travel to the Venezuelan city. If you arrive at an early hour chances are you’re done within the day.

Those with a Dutch passport fall under the waiver program and don’t need a visa to enter the US. Dutch passport holders will be required to have a machine readable (new passport version) copy by October 26 of this year to gain access to the US.

The waiver program doesn’t apply to students, ‘They must also travel to Caracas to obtain a visa”, declared William Remie of the American consulate. All legal residents of the islands who are of a nationality, for which a visa is required to enter the US, must go to the embassy in Venezuela to obtain a new visa or to request the extension of an existing visa. 

No appointment is necessary to go to the embassy. Petitioners from the Antilles will be placed ahead of the line. However, the embassy can’t guarantee that everything will be handled within a day, which means that the petitioner must be prepared to stay over an additional day.

This one tops the dumb-move scale. At a time when the U.S. is having increasingly bad relations with Venezuela, it is mind-boggling that somebody would think of making Caracas the locus for fingerprint scan visas. I guess the geniuses at the State Department strike again.