'Most pro-Israel administration evah' presides over 80% rise in rejection of Israeli visa requests
The figures, which were published Monday morning in Yediot Aharonot, show that last year about 125,000 Israelis requested tourist visas to the US, with 9.7% of them being refused. The previous year in 2012, that figure was at 5.4%.
The percentage of rejected requests has risen dramatically in the past years. As recently as 2007, a mere 2.5% of the requests were denied.
Due to the recent upsurge in visa request rejections, Israel has lost its place on the "white list," the list of countries whose citizens can visit the US without a visa. Only nations with a visa rejection rate of less than 3% are allowed on the list.
Sources in the Israeli Foreign Ministry's consular branch claim the increase in rejections stems from political motives and is unwarranted. They add that the rejections were meant to remove Israel from the "white list."
"We meet all the requirements to receive an exemption (from visas), aside from the rate of rejections," noted an official in the Foreign Ministry, who criticized the move as "political."I suspect it's revenge for this.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, travel visas, United States, US-Israel relationship
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:54 PM
1 Comments:
Israel should return the favor in kind. Between NGO's and academics who quixotically fly to Israel in order to scream it does not or should not exist, there's easily 10 or 15% of all applications which should be routinely denied if not outright banned for years.
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