HavanaThe United States will begin issuing “temporary work” and “exchange program” visas for Cubans in Havana next week, but will maintain restrictions on processing tourist and business visas within the island, the embassy announced on Wednesday.
The announcement represents a small step by the consulate, which resumed issuing visas in Havana in May 2022, after four years of closure due to alleged sonic attacks against its diplomatic staff.
“Effective Monday, August 19, the U.S. Embassy in Havana is expanding visa services to include certain categories of temporary work visas and exchange programs,” the embassy said on its website.
The resumption of some visa services in 2022 was limited to immigrant visa processing.
The new announcement will benefit people who are transferred within a company, “workers with extraordinary abilities or achievements,” athletes, artists, entertainers and members of religious entities, among others.
But Wednesday’s announcement “does not include nonimmigrant visas for persons wishing to enter the United States temporarily for business (B-1 visa) or tourism (B-2 visa),” the diplomatic mission added.
The embassy reduced its staff to a minimum in September 2017, when the administration of Republican Donald Trump claimed that mysterious health incidents, described as sonic attacks, affected its diplomats in 2016 and 2017 and were also reported later in other embassies around the world.
A U.S. health agency study in March found that people who said they suffered from Havana syndrome, an unexplained disorder that has affected dozens of American diplomats, underwent medical tests that revealed no significant brain damage.
For Cubans, the real blow was the closure of the consulate, turning obtaining a U.S. visa into an obstacle course and forcing them to travel to a third country, such as Colombia or Guyana, to apply for the document.
#expands #types #visas #Cubans #Havana
– 2024-08-16 21:29:12
