The Foreigner's Guide to Slovakia

In just a few days U.S. law is going to change that will effect Slovaks. On November 17 the U.S. is ending travel visa requirements for citizens of Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and South Korea. After this date Slovaks will be able to travel to the U.S. without having to apply for a visa first.

This is huge news for my Slovak husband and I because finally his family will be able to come visit us without having to go through the hassle that obtaining a U.S. visa currently is.

The visa application process for Slovaks has been a very personal and upsetting experience for my husband and I. Twice my sister-in-law applied for a visa to visit us in California and was rejected both times. Why? Because a woman in her early 20s who is not married, has no kids, who doesn’t own property, and who wants to visit the US, is apparently suspicious. That’s why.

The worst part was that my sister-in-law’s experience at the US embassy was traumatic. The interviews were more like interrogations with staffers who treated her as if she had already committed a crime.

To say the least my husband and I were furious. Since I was raised to be vocal when something is unfair or just plain wrong, I started my own letter-writing campaign to drop visa requirements for Slovaks. Here’s a run down of my attempt:

• I started with writing the US Ambassador to Slovakia. I received a long, 2-page letter in return from one of his aids that there really was nothing they could do. The U.S. State Department has laws about accepting and rejecting people, and that my sister-in-law didn’t qualify. Though I appreciated the response, I wasn’t satisfied.

• Then I decided to write President Bush. It was right around the time when Slovak Prime Minister Dzurinda was going to the White House for a visit so I wrote to PM Dzurinda first, telling him that I was sending a letter to President Bush and attached a copy of the Bush letter. I got a very nice email from someone in Dzurinda’s foreign affairs office thanking me for my efforts and assuring me that Dzurinda would be speaking to Bush about this issue. He also encouraged me to continue my letter writing campaign with letters to US Congressional committee members who deal with this issue.

• Next I sent off my letter to the White House, making my case that the visa process was unfair and how it was wrong to treat some EU citizens who were interested in visiting the U.S. as if they were all guilty of attempting to illegally stay forever. I didn’t receive a personal response from the president but my letter was forwarded to the State Department where I received a lengthy response restating what the current U.S. law was and why it was in place.

• Finally, I sent a copy of my Bush letter to the Slovak daily newspaper SME along with a note, where they published it in their “Opinion” section. I also sent an op-ed piece to several US newspapers but unfortunately it wasn’t picked up by any of them.
  
  

In mid October of last month, two years after I sent my first letter, Slovak President Gašparovič was in Washington DC visiting President Bush. It had already been rumored that there would soon be an announcement canceling visas for several Central European counties and this was indeed the case. A few days later after Gašparovič’s visit, President Bush made the announcement at a press event at the White House. He said the following:

“All of the [seven] nations represented here today allow American citizens to travel to their countries visa-free. The United States has not accorded their citizens the same privilege. For years the leaders of these nations have explained to me how frustrating it is for their citizens to wait in lines and pay visa fees to take a vacation or make a business trip or visit their families here in the United States. These close friends of America told me that it was unfair that their people had to jump through bureaucratic hoops that other allies can walk around. I told them I agree with them.”

This November 17 I will feel some sense of vindication. I won’t kid myself that my letter writing directly affected the president in his decision, but I am glad that I made the effort to make myself heard on behalf of those who were judged and rejected unfairly.

For this I extend my heart-felt thanks to President Bush.

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