How does a country qualify to participate in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP)?
In order to be designated to participate in the Visa Waiver Program, countries must meet certain legislatively established criteria, as set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act (U.S.C. 1187), the Border Security Act, and the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act (EBSVERA). Among these criteria are requirements that: • Governments provide reciprocal visa-free travel for U.S. citizens (90 days for tourism or business purposes); • Governments issue secure machine-readable passports that satisfy internationally accepted standards; • Governments certify that they have a program to incorporate biometric identifiers into their passports in accordance with International Civil Aviation Organization standards; • Governments certify that they report the theft of blank passports on a timely basis to the U.S. Government, and do so in practice; • The country must have a very low nonimmigrant refusal rate (as explained in Section 217 (c)(2)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality A
