President Gustavo Petro and his ambassador in Washington, Luis Alberto Murillo, have been airing in public two proposals that they have recently made to the US government privately but which, they warn, will soon be official.
On the one hand, the possibility of eliminating the visa requirement for Colombians who want to travel to this country for tourism or business. On the other, that Temporary Protected Status or TPS be granted to nationals who are in the US illegally, but who can regularize their situation and obtain a work permit.
(Also read: Government will ask the United States to eliminate the visa requirement for Colombians)
These are two bold proposals that other presidents have tried before and that have always, until now, ended in failure. EL TIEMPO consulted analysts, former diplomats and people close to the Joe Biden administration to establish the viability of both proposals in the current context.
They all agree that these are extremely complex initiatives with very few chances of materializing. According to one of them, in fact, the chances are “close to zero.”
Not only because Colombia does not meet many of the criteria required by law to grant these migratory measures, but also because of the difficult political environment that surrounds them.
In the case of the elimination of visas, the procedure is guided by a law that Congress approved in 1986 under which the Visa Waiver Program (Visa Waiver Program, or VWP for its acronym in English) was created.
According to analysts, it is a complex proposal.
There are currently 40 countries in the world that have been granted a VWP by the US and that also require reciprocity for their citizens. The first to enter this list was the United Kingdom, in 1986, and the last, Croatia, in 2021. These are mostly European countries, some Asian (South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan), plus Australia, Iceland and New Zealand.
The only Latin American included in the list is Chile. Not even Mexico, its neighbor and main trading partner, is part of this group.
Although it is a decision that falls to the current president, Biden at this time, the law establishes a very rigorous and extensive process that goes through the review of several US government agencies. And it also includes very specific criteria that the country must meet before being considered.
Among them, a good exchange of data related to law enforcement and security with the United States, issuance of electronic passports, having a visitor (B) visa rejection rate of less than three percent, timely notification of lost and stolen passports, both blank and issued; and maintaining high standards for anti-terrorism, law enforcement, border control, and document security.
(You can read: Visas for tourists to the United States: solve the most frequent doubts)
Both measures have technical and political headwinds that make them unlikely.
Although all the criteria are complex and difficult to meet, the visa rejection rate has been one of the main obstacles in the past. At this time it is not clear what the percentage of rejection is. But the country, not even in the best moments, has managed to reach that 3 percent.
In addition, the law requires that this level be maintained for at least two consecutive years. In other words, if the rate is higher at this time, it would first have to be lowered to that number and then sustained for at least two fiscal years.
The last government that took this process seriously was that of Juan Manuel Santos, who even officially requested it from the Barack Obama administration in 2014.
Before that, say sources who participated in the effort, the rejection rate was 10 percent and it was lowered, after much work, to a figure close to 4 percent. In addition to the fact that the magic number was never reached, there were always other obstacles, such as the issue of border control and the presence of active terrorist groups in the country that ended up derailing the initiative.
![US visa](https://www.eltiempo.com/images/1x1.png)
“These measures, if achieved, would be welcome for Colombians. Colombia and the United States have a historic bipartisan relationship that the new Colombian government recognizes. Perhaps this is a way to broaden the bilateral agenda and seek other paths of joint work. However, , both measures have headwinds both technically and politically that make them unlikely.To give just one example, technically, the Visa Waiver Program requires countries to have very complex requirements, such as border control, that Colombia would not comply today,” says Muni Jensen, Partner at Dentons Global Advisors.
The US also takes very seriously the country’s economic outlook and the possibility of people traveling as tourists but with the aim of staying illegally. Something that happened with Argentina, which was granted this status during the years of Carlos Menem’s presidency, but then had to eliminate it when many of its nationals emigrated to the US, abusing the privilege, when the nation entered an economic crisis. .
Although the current situation in Colombia is not the same, the country is going through hard times as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. Something that is being reflected in a huge wave of Colombians arriving at the southern border of the United States. So far this fiscal year, more than 120,000 have been arrested, a record number. And opening the door right now for visa-free travel could result in a migratory tsunami.
(Also: Eliminate US visa requirement for Colombians: what is needed?)
What about TPS?
On the TPS sides, the options are also remote. This status is also governed by an act of Congress that establishes strict criteria. Currently only citizens of 15 countries, including Venezuela, have this protection that only applies to people who were already in the US when the status was granted.
“The TPS is a program that focuses on countries that are in civil war, suffer a humanitarian crisis or have experienced a major natural disaster. Just look at the countries that have TPS: Haiti, Burma, Cameroon, and others with similar problems. In this, Colombia also does not meet the basic criteria,” Jensen continues.
The TPS is a program that focuses on countries that are in civil war, suffer a humanitarian crisis.
In the most recent cases in the region, the status only came after two earthquakes, 2010 and 2021 in the case of Haiti, and the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela in the last decade that has forced the displacement of more than 6 million people. But even so, they came at a high cost, since the mere announcement of TPS triggered illegal migration from these countries to the United States, which is partly responsible for the new migration crisis on the border.
A similar decision for Colombians, the sources believe, would have the same result.
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The Colombian government is also exploring the possibility of granting nationals a Deferred Enforcement Departure (or DED), another figure that depends on the president but does not include a work permit, only the guarantee that they will not be expelled for a period of determined time.
But even this would be complicated for Biden, who already faces strong criticism from his Republican rivals for the border situation and who often exploit the immigration issue in electoral campaigns.
![US Migrants](https://www.eltiempo.com/images/1x1.png)
Measures such as those proposed by the Colombian government could further trigger migration to the US.
Guillermo Arias / AFP
“My heart is in this with the Colombian government. There are, without a doubt, many people in need of protection or in economic difficulties. But what my mind thinks is that the chances of something like this happening are extremely small unless Colombia offers something transactional. There are many Colombians who are already traveling to Mexico and then go to the border and a TPS would increase that pressure. The political issue in the US is very complex, with the mid-term elections approaching. In addition, many people in the White House see the migration issue as a weakness,” says Adam Isacson, analyst for hemispheric and migration issues at Wola.
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Various sources consulted by this newspaper maintain that they have warned Ambassador Murillo about the enormous obstacles that both initiatives face and how uncomfortable they are for Biden at the moment.
The ambassador’s argument, they affirm, is that Colombia is the country that has paid the most costs for the migration of Venezuelans and works as a kind of stopper for that flow of people who seek to reach the United States. Consequently, the United States. It should help Colombians who, as a result of the same situation, have headed north.
According to Isacson, something that makes sense on paper but ignores the political realities that coexist in Washington.
Several of the sources told EL TIEMPO that their recommendation to Murillo was to ask the US for a solution to the gigantic delay in processing visas in the country, which is currently taking more than two years.
Something that he apparently did, because this Tuesday it was learned that the US would have promised to speed up the procedures to obtain a visa for the first time or to renew it.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERI
Correspondent of THE TIME
Washington
On Twitter @sergom68
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