Latvians to be able to travel to US without visa? Maybe, it will happen...

Today, Estonia and Latvia signed a memorandum of understanding with US which "sets the two countries on a path of entry to US visa waiver program". The memorandums do not contain an explict date when visa-free travel will start. But there is a chance that it may happen already at the end of 2008.

I've written about visa horror stories a few times on this blog. By now, US is the only Western nation that requires visas from Latvian citizens. Canada and Australia have added Latvia to their visa-free travel programmes over the last year and they have not seen much of illegal immigrants. (The fear of illegal immigration is the main reason for requiring visas.) Why work illegally in a faraway country if UK, Ireland, Sweden and many other European high-income countries allow Latvians to live and work there legally?

Hopefully, we will be able to travel to US without a hassle of getting visa soon...