Visa

NEW DELHI - Myanmar President Thein Sein released some 20 political prisoners Friday, days before a historic summit with President Obama in Washington early next week, according to officials and prisoner rights groups. The ex-general's government denied that the releases were linked to the visit, and activist groups said the nation's leadership had not gone far enough. But the release follows last month's pardon of dozens of political prisoners - one day after the European Union agreed to end most economic sanctions against the former pariah state.

WASHINGTON - Senators pushed forward Monday with changes to a sweeping immigration overhaul over the objections of a union of immigration officers that announced its opposition to the bill. The legislation, written by a bipartisan group of senators, has largely withstood challenges and is on track for a key vote this week as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to pass the measure to the full chamber. As the committee convened for its fourth day of hearings, the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council, which represents about 12,000 employees at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, announced its opposition, saying provisions in the bill could lead to fraud.

The Chinese put up with a lot living in the world's most populous country: standing on over-crowded trains for 40 hours; sleeping outside hospitals to secure a doctor's appointment; waiting more than a year to earn a driver's license. Add getting a U.S. entry visa to the list. Applicants here have waited as long as 60 days to secure an appointment at one of five U.S. consular locations in China that process visas. There, they're often greeted by long lines, followed by a face-to-face interview that can end badly in a matter of seconds.

NEW DELHI - Myanmar President Thein Sein released some 20 political prisoners Friday, days before a historic summit with President Obama in Washington early next week, according to officials and prisoner rights groups. The ex-general's government denied that the releases were linked to the visit, and activist groups said the nation's leadership had not gone far enough. But the release follows last month's pardon of dozens of political prisoners - one day after the European Union agreed to end most economic sanctions against the former pariah state.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The Pakistani government ordered the Islamabad bureau chief for the New York Times to leave the country on the eve of landmark parliamentary elections, according to the newspaper's website. Declan Walsh, 39, was told early Thursday morning that his visa was being canceled and that he had to leave the country within 72 hours, the paper's website reported. A group of police delivered Walsh a letter from the Interior Ministry telling him that his visa was being revoked “in view of your undesirable activities.” Pakistan's parliamentary and provincial assembly elections on Saturday mark the first democratic transition of one civilian government to another in a country with a long history of military coups and political ousters.

After filing 400 stories from China, reporter Melissa Chan never thought she'd wind up in the headlines herself. Chan returned to Southern California last week as the first accredited foreign correspondent to be expelled from China in 14 years, an act that sparked a flurry of news reports and expressions of solidarity from fellow journalists. Chan, who was the sole Al Jazeera English correspondent in China, said she knew she was on shaky ground for most of this year. She had been working on month-by-month credentials since January, when the government refused a routine visa-renewal request.

If you're Chinese or Brazilian, the wait for your U.S. visa may be over. OK, not completely over, but perhaps not as long as it once was. Against the backdrop of Disney World in Florida, President Obama acknowledged on Jan. 19 the importance of tourism to the U.S. economy and promised that the waits for visas, which published reports said often lasted three months, would improve. “We will always protect our borders and shores and our tourist destinations from people who want to do us harm,” Obama said.

Re "10 Held as INS Targets Visa Abuses," Dec. 13: Muslim activists complain about the recent roundup of Middle Easterners who have overstayed their visas, claiming that they are being profiled. When they signed the visa application they made a promise to the U.S. government to abide by the terms of the visa. By overstaying, they have broken their promise. Perhaps in other cultures and societies a promise is meaningless, but in American society, promises are expected to be kept. Henry Sakaida Temple City

Your article "Keeping Up With the Rules of the Visa Game" (Travel Insider, Jan. 27) mentioned an Australian government Web site where travelers can obtain an Electronic Travel Authority for approximately $11. I was surprised that you failed to mention that ETAs can be obtained free from the commercial carrier the traveler uses to enter Australia. Most of them are part of the computerized network that is used to obtain the ETA, and all the traveler has to do is provide passport information when booking or ticketing passage.

I would like to add a voice of support for Jerry Hulse's March 29 position in Travel Tips of possibly not visiting France until the visa fee is waived and the car rental tax revised downward. My wife and I canceled a six-week trip to France last year for similar reasons and we are not going this year either. There must be many others who feel as we do. We follow and enjoy Jerry Hulse's column as well as the entire Travel Section. We appreciate his speaking out on issues such as this from time to time.

WASHINGTON - Senators kept the bipartisan immigration bill largely unchanged Thursday after dispatching dozens of proposed amendments even as they punted many of the thorniest issues to next week. The day's session at the Senate Judiciary Committee revolved largely around the elusive issue of enforcement: how to prevent immigrants from remaining in this country after having entered illegally or overstaying their visas. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the eight authors of the sweeping bill, argued that a strict employment verification system would be among the best tools for clamping down on illegal immigration.

The Senate Judiciary Committee amended the sweeping immigration bill Tuesday to tighten student visa rules in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. The committee, which is trying to get through the 844-page bill by the end of the week, also fended off changes that threatened to derail the delicate compromise reached by a bipartisan group of eight senators who drafted the legislation. The lengthy meeting of the committee unfolded as a core group of House Republicans turned up the volume against the immigration overhaul.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The Pakistani government ordered the Islamabad bureau chief for the New York Times to leave the country on the eve of landmark parliamentary elections, according to the newspaper's website. Declan Walsh, 39, was told early Thursday morning that his visa was being canceled and that he had to leave the country within 72 hours, the paper's website reported. A group of police delivered Walsh a letter from the Interior Ministry telling him that his visa was being revoked “in view of your undesirable activities.” Pakistan's parliamentary and provincial assembly elections on Saturday mark the first democratic transition of one civilian government to another in a country with a long history of military coups and political ousters.

The overseers of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum concealed from the public independent reports of lax financial controls and widespread spending abuses at the taxpayer-owned stadium that included sloppy accounting of hot dog sales and excessive perks for managers, records show. Problems detailed in the reports by two independent audit and consulting firms compounded money woes that leaders of the Coliseum Commission cited as a chief reason they decided to turn over stewardship of the two-time Olympic venue to USC. The Times obtained the reports through the court as part of a pending lawsuit the news organization filed against the commission, alleging that the panel has violated the California Public Records Act and open-meetings law. The commission refused to release the reports when The Times first inquired about them in 2011.

In some parts of Koreatown and South Los Angeles, one in three adult residents is in the country illegally, according to a study released Tuesday by researchers at USC. Countywide, about one in 10 adults is an immigrant who crossed the border illegally or overstayed a visa, the study found. Many of those immigrants have put down roots here: Half have been in the country for more than a decade, and 12% are homeowners. Many are also the parents of American citizens. In Los Angeles County, one in five children has a parent living in the country illegally, according to the study.

Re "Israel's free pass from Boxer," Opinion, April 28 George Bisharat grossly misleads readers when he claims that bipartisan legislation I introduced would allow Israel to "continue racially profiling Americans of Arab and Muslim heritage who travel to Israel. " My legislation would give Israel the opportunity to join the U.S. visa waiver program, allowing Israeli citizens to travel to the United States without first obtaining a visa - a privilege extended to 37 other countries.

Mike Tyson was looking forward to meeting the people who inspired his famous facial tattoo. And, presumably, some people in New Zealand and Australia were looking forward to hearing the former boxing great during his speaking tour down under. But it now appears that nobody is going to get their wish. Tyson's visa for New Zealand has been canceled after a charity that would have benefited from a appearance by the one-time heavyweight champ pulled out of the event due to his 1992 rape conviction.

Every harvest season, U.S. produce growers have a narrow window in which the success of an entire year's work is dependent on human labor. With some crops, this window is only a few days. But finding a secure, reliable workforce to bring in the harvest can be extremely difficult. Over the last decade, American farmers have floated many ideas for remedying this situation, but they haven't been able to stir up the political will to change a broken immigration system. Both political parties share in the failure to act. In 2009 and 2010, Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, yet there was no action on immigration reform.

The federal government will tighten oversight to help ensure that foreign students seeking to enter the United States have valid student visas - the latest step to increase security after the Boston Marathon bombings. The heightened scrutiny by U.S. Customs and Border Protection is effective immediately, sources with knowledge of the issue said Friday. Officials would not discuss what they called operational details. But the move is designed to give border agents better and faster access to computerized databases that track the status of student visas.

Jianwei Li and two other wealthy Chinese businessmen thought they had a sure thing when they wired $1 million each to a California firm that had promised to build a fine Chinese restaurant in the Bay Area city of San Bruno. The project had an alluring budget with multiple lucky 8s - $5,888,888 - and the three investors were assured it would create enough jobs to obtain the real prize: a U.S. green card. Months passed and nothing happened. When Li's friends cornered the project developer one evening at a karaoke bar, the man, identified in court papers as Sammy Lee, apparently devised a fantastic escape.