"Canada has slapped visa requirements on citizens of Mexico and the Czech Republic, citing a huge surge in refugee claims by visitors from those countries.
The change takes effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Tuesday. For the first 48 hours, Mexicans and Czechs will be able to apply for entry on arrival in Canada. However, after 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, they must have a visa."
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/07/1...fugee.html
The Mexicans are probably because of the drug wars going on, but what's happening in the Czech Republic?
CatherineM Wrote:The Mexicans are probably because of the drug wars going on, but what's happening in the Czech Republic?
From what I gathered from another news source, sounds like it was mostly people from a certain ethnic group thats not well tolerated in that country.
Mexico is a combination of drug wars/usual corruption in Mexico and the US becoming stricter which has caused more Mexicans to come north to Canada.
Hi
AWA1979 Wrote:From what I gathered from another news source, sounds like it was mostly people from a certain ethnic group thats not well tolerated in that country.
Mexico is a combination of drug wars/usual corruption in Mexico and the US becoming stricter which has caused more Mexicans to come north to Canada.
1. 2000 Refugee claims from Czech Romas in the past year compared to 5 in 2006 before the Czech visa was lifted
2. 9400 Mexican refugee claims last year, over 5K in the first 6 months of this year.
PMM
I wonder if other countries are experiencing a large surge as well?
Hi
sponge362 Wrote:I wonder if other countries are experiencing a large surge as well?
Nope, only Canada. Czech citizens can live anywhere in the EU that they want, and the US doesn't give benefits to refugee claimants, also will find them manifestly unfounded really quickly and then remove the claimant.
PMM
PMM Wrote:Hi
1. 2000 Refugee claims from Czech Romas in the past year compared to 5 in 2006 before the Czech visa was lifted
2. 9400 Mexican refugee claims last year, over 5K in the first 6 months of this year.
PMM
I was reffering only to why they might be leaving their home countries as to why there has been an increase, not why Canada imposed the visa.
This is going to cause some trouble with the EU. We could be looking at having to have visas to go over there.
That's just not going to happen.
There are countries in the EU that until very recently required a visitor visa, there are some that still do - Bulgaria, Lithuania (some passport holders), Poland (some passport holders) - the rules for Poland just changed not that long ago and Romania.
The entire EU is not going to potentially lose all kinds of Canadian tourists due to a visa requirement, just like Mexico is not going to impose a visa requirement on Canadians.
CatherineM Wrote:This is going to cause some trouble with the EU. We could be looking at having to have visas to go over there.
DerbyGirl Wrote:That's just not going to happen.
There are countries in the EU that until very recently required a visitor visa, there are some that still do - Bulgaria, Lithuania (some passport holders), Poland (some passport holders) - the rules for Poland just changed not that long ago and Romania.
The entire EU is not going to potentially lose all kinds of Canadian tourists due to a visa requirement, just like Mexico is not going to impose a visa requirement on Canadians.
Never say never. When the US started to require Visa's for Brazil citizens again, Brazil started to require Visa's for US citizens in return.
However Mexico likely wont, they haven't imposed Visa's on US citizens yet despite years of various requirements for Mexicans to enter the US.
Long term, however, it is difficult to predict.
Right: never say never.
If, eight years ago, anyone suggested that Americans and Canadians would have to have passports to travel back and forth between the two countries, they would have been laughed at. The *trend* was emphatically in the opposite direction, back then. As the cliche goes: that was then, this is now.
There are serious economic, energy, water, and food issues on the horizon, issues which have been simmering for many decades now, issues which are not geared to the 24-hour news cycles but which seem to be on a relentless, incessant march toward crises on a devastatingly global scale if not actually apocalyptic (in terms of dramatically changing life as we know it), a march that takes at least decades, more likely generations, perhaps a century or so. The current refugee problems confronting national immigration policy-making, in many countries (and in individual countries in the EU as well, where the idea of reversing the open borders policy is more than occasionally argued at high levels of government), and increasingly a largely economic driven refugee flow, may be just the beginning. This will definitely strain international relations. Where that leads, it is very difficult to predict.
Re Mexico -- actually when I was spending a lot of time in Mexico in the 80s, an American did indeed need to have a visa to travel beyond a certain point (not always the same distance from the border; for example, on the Baja I think that point was south of Ensenada, well down into Mexico, but south of Nogales that point was just a ways south of the border town). It was, however, a silly, flimsy piece of paper with carbon copies which got stamped upon entry.
Yes, they still have the little piece of paper you get on arrival if going beyond I think its 200 miles, but its free and not a hassel and no need for it in advance. (as of 2003 last time I went into deep Mexico.)
I was mainly talking about real Visa's where you send the passport off, get it back, pay a fee all in advance of travel.
Worlds over populated and everyone wants the good life, but we can't have both.
I have a few stories I'd like to add and there is a lot of red tape that you should consider. I will post this information when I have more time. Please feel free to check out the link below for some very interesting articles that will help you.