US Implements Limits to Hungarian Nationals’ ESTA Authorizations

On August 1, 2023, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) announced the validity period for travel to the US offered to citizens or nationals of Hungary under the Visa Waiver Program (“VWP”) utilizing the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (“ESTA”) has been reduced from two years to one year. Additionally, only single visits will be allowed under each ESTA application, as opposed to multiple entries.  According to the US Embassy in Budapest, the reduction of ESTA validity is due to the “Hungarian Government’s inaction” to meet VWP security requirements in line with its “simplified naturalization process” granting Hungarian citizenship “to nearly one million people between 2011 and 2020 without adequate security measures in place to verify their identities.” The reduction in ESTA validity will affect new ESTA applications received after the implementation of the regulation on August 1, 2023 and is not retroactive. All ESTA approvals granted before August 1, 2023 remain valid for two years and more than one entry. 

New York Times: “Trump Administration Orders Tougher Screening of Visa Applicants”

The Trump administration is making it more difficult for millions of visitors to enter the United States by demanding additional security checks before issuing visas to tourists, business travelers, and relatives of American residents, all seemingly in fulfillment of a campaign promise to enact “extreme vetting.” Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has sent diplomatic cables to US Embassies and Consulates worldwide with these instructions for stricter vetting, basing them off a March 6 presidential memorandum ordering the secretary of state, the attorney general, and the secretary of homeland security to “implement protocols and procedures” to enhance visa screening. The new security checks generally do not apply to citizens of countries in the Visa Waiver Program, which includes thirty-eight member countries. The additional scrutiny, for example, will ask applicants about their background and social media history if a person has ever been in a territory controlled by the Islamic State. “Consular officers should not hesitate to refuse any case presenting security concerns,” Secretary Tillerson writes in the cables.  “All visa decisions are national security decisions.”

In 2016, the United States issued more than ten million visas, and this additional scrutiny is likely to lengthen the already bureaucratic process. “This will certainly slow down the screening process and impose a substantial burden on these applicants,” Greg Chen, the director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, tells the New York Times. “It will make it much harder and create substantial delays.” Chen questions how a single interviewer who conducts 120 interviews per day—at about five minutes per interview—can improve security. “It’s highly unlikely they could obtain information that demonstrates whether someone is a national security threat in such a brief interview process,” he says.

The Guardian: “Canadians traveling to Women's March denied US entry after sharing plans”

Travelers from Canada to the presidential inauguration and Women’s March on Washington say they were denied entry to the US after telling border agents at a land crossing in Quebec about their plans. Sasha Dyck, a thirty-four-year-old nurse from Montreal, was one of a group of eight who tried to cross the US/Canada border at St. Bernard de Lacolle in Quebec and Champlain, New York. When the group—two of whom were French nationals and the rest Canadians—told the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents about their plans, the agents told them to pull over. Agents searched their cars, examined their mobile phones, and each member of the group was fingerprinted and photographed. Agents told the two French citizens that they had been denied entry to the US and that any future visit to the US would now require a visa.

"Then for the rest of us, they said, ‘You’re headed home today,'" Dyck tells the Guardian. CBP warned the group that they would be arrested if they tried to cross the border again over the weekend. “And that was it, they didn’t give a lot of justification.” She made the same journey to attend Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009. “I couldn’t even get in for this one, whereas at the other one, the guy at the border literally gave me a high five when I came in and everybody was just like, ‘Welcome’. The whole city was partying; nobody was there to protest Obama the first time.” Dyck tells Global News: “I hope it doesn’t represent a closing down or a firming up of the border, or of mentalities south of the border.” 

In a separate incident, UK national Joe Kroese says that he, a Canadian, and two Americans were held at the same border crossing for three hours last Thursday. The group had traveled from Montreal—where Kroese is studying—and when they told agents they were considering attending the Women’s March, they were questioned, fingerprinted, and photographed. Kroese and his Canadian friend were refused entry because they were going to attend what one border agent claimed was a “potentially violent rally.” Kroese says that CBP advised them to not travel to the US for a few months, and that Kroese would need a visa for any future visits to the US. Kroese says another group of Canadians were also refused entry. "They searched the car and then they asked the driver if he practiced Islam and if he spoke Arabic,” he tells the Independent.  They wanted to spook us a bit. It felt like a kind of intimidation." 

In another incident, Montreal resident and McGill-student Joseph Decunha says he was denied entry when he told agents he was attending the inauguration and Women’s March. The group he was traveling with was brought in for secondary processing, where the border agent asked about their political views, Decunha tells the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “The first thing he asked us point blank is, ‘Are you anti- or pro-Trump?’” Decunha says he was fingerprinted, photographed and denied entry. “They told me I was being denied entry for administrative reasons. According to the agent, my traveling to the United States for the purpose of protesting didn’t constitute a valid reason to cross,” Decunha says. “It felt like, if we had been pro-Trump, we would have absolutely been allowed entry.”

US CBP says it does not discuss individual cases, and states in an email to the Guardian: “We recognize that there is an important balance to strike between securing our borders while facilitating the high volume of legitimate trade and travel that crosses our borders every day, and we strive to achieve that balance and show the world that the United States is a welcoming nation.” Scott Bardsley, the press secretary to Ralph Goodale, Canada’s public safety minister, in a statement defended US CBP agents for their actions. “When entering another country, including Canada, it has always been the case that goods accompanying a traveler may be searched to verify admissibility. Every country is sovereign and able to make its own rules to admit people and goods to manage its immigration framework, health and safety.”

More than one million individuals every day are admitted into the United States at its air, land, and sea ports, the agency reports, and an average of 600 people a day are denied entry for various reasons including national security concerns. Canadian nationals and nationals of those countries in the Visa Waiver Program are permitted to travel temporarily to the US without a visa for certain valid reasons. Valid reasons for such trips, according to CBP, include vacation, visit with friends or relatives, medical treatment, as well as “participation in social events hosted by fraternal, social, or service organizations.”

Even with reports of some turned away, the Huffington Post notes that in all likelihood many Canadians were able to cross the border to attend the march. According to Aaron Bowker, a public affairs officer for the CBP’s Buffalo field office in New York, the Buffalo office saw a fourteen percent increase in vehicular traffic last Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and that many of these admitted travelers were heading to events in D.C. He says that approximately 41,000 vehicles were processed over that three-day period and more than 100,000 passengers were inspected. Just over 95 people were denied entry, which is less than one percent of travelers who were processed. Bowker says that not all of those travelers denied entry were heading to D.C. Organizers for the Women’s March had arranged for some 650 people in buses from Canada to cross the border on last Friday night, and so far there were no reports these buses were prevented from entering the US.