Tanzania is newest addition to US-Visit program
As of last Friday, all travelers and visa applicants from Tanzania to the United States had to undergo electronic index finger printing exercise, affecting all US visa applicants between 14 and 79 years of age. The US Embassy in Tanzania’s coastal capital of Dar es Salaam launched the
Washington designed “US-Visit” Program on May 21, which puts Tanzania in the list of 115 other airports and 14 seaports serviced by the program.
The US Embassy Charge de Affaire Mr. Michael Owen said, “We are excited because this new procedure is part of the State Department’s secure borders, the program will benefit Tanzanian travelers and the American public.”
Mr. Owen said this exercise would help US visa holders retain their travel documents and keep off thieves who could come across and take them for their advantage to visit and stay in America.
He said the whole exercise will be “friendly” and takes only 30 seconds for the US visa applicant to get index fingers electronically scanned. Tanzania’s chief of protocol in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Abdul Cisco Mtiro, observed the launching of the US-Visit program.
“The United States is a country of immigrants, and we value the richness and diversity that international visitors bring to our country. For that reason, we have worked hard to ensure that our efforts to strengthen our security do not impede access to our country for international travelers,” Owen said.
“The Department of State is not singling out Tanzania or any particular country or US mission for collecting finger scans,” said Owen.
Chief consular in the US Embassy in Tanzania, Ms. Elizabeth Jordan, said the program was intended on part, to identify individual travelers seeking to enter the US with evil motives – terrorists, criminals or other foreigners who might cause security risk to the US and the traveling public.
Early in March this year, from Tanzania entering United Kingdom were subjected to electronic fingerprinting in an exercise which the British government said was aimed at blocking illegal travelers do change their passports and enter the UK.
Unlike the US, the British government had selected specific and few African countries to undergo fingerprinting exercise.
eTN Tanzania
author: Apolinari Tairo
Travelvideo.TV – your news source for the travel and tourism industry.
May 25, 2004
Posted in: Africa