Quote:
Originally Posted by tohellnback
How's this supposed to be cheaper than a Canadian visa that is good for five years, a Canadian has to pay every time they enter Colombia 100 bucks a pop
a Colombian pays once for the the visa I consider it a bargain for 5 years
If a Colombian has to travel to bogota to have a eye scan , sure it costs a bit of money but if it is such a burden on your budget then you have no business going to Canada 145 dollars will get you nowhere
My point is a family vacation to Colombia just won't happen
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It definitely sucks. If Canada softened its immigration/tourism policies with Colombians than it would create all kinds of problems with the USA. The narcos would send people to Canada and then have them illegally enter the USA over the land border.
To be honest, I do not think you guys have a "good" understanding of how much of a "hardship" it is on Colombians to get a tourist visa for Canada or the USA. The process for a Colombian getting a 5 year tourist visa is like them winning the lottery. The $$ value you mentioned for getting the tourist visa is not the real cost. The real cost is 200 hours of waiting in lines.
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It's currently CAD 90 not CAD 100 (not that this is significant difference). I do take the point that it's every trip, so if a Canadian travels to Colombia several times in 5 years it is more expensive, EXCEPT for the point made by #gatogato. A Canadian flies in, pays the fee with a credit card, and enters the country; a Colombian has to spend a ridiculous amount of time and effort preparing all of the forms demonstrating financial capability, getting letter of invitation, etc., etc.
Schengen Zone passport holders had visa-free entry to Colombia, and granted visa-free access to Colombians at the end of 2015. Colombia lifted the entry fee for Canadians in 2019, presumably in the hope of reciprocity on the part of Canada, and have now re-introduced it.
I suggest that the issue of Canada/USA border is moot: the border is controlled, not everywhere with fences and border guards, but with surveillance and intelligence. More to the point, the most practical way of moving stuff from Colombia to the USA is not by using individuals with back-packs who then have to get through robust security checks at the departure and arrival airports (except of course for decoy purposes) but by container or "charter" aircraft.
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