What are the implications of the decision of Colombia and the United Kingdom to require visas?

Given the decision of the British government to once again request visas from Colombian citizens, alleging an increase in irregular migration, Gustavo Petro’s management announced a similar measure in reciprocity.

The Voice of America consulted experts about the implications that the exchange of restrictions between both governments may bring.

For María Teresa Palacios Sanabria, a professor at the Faculty of Jurisprudence at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá and an expert in human mobility, something to highlight about this decision by the United Kingdom is the “mirror effect” that it could have in other European states where Colombians They do not require a visa.

“It may be that other countries where Colombians are not required to have a visa may be able to replicate these types of measures due to immigration policies, because many tend to have a mirror effect in other states,” he highlighted.

“In the Schengen area of ​​the European Union, for example, Colombians do not require a visa and sometimes these restrictive policies have that rebound effect in other states and then diplomatic missions have to be alert to take measures to prevent decisions from being made. like those adopted by the United Kingdom,” he added.

John Sánchez, lawyer and co-founder of the Colombian College of International Immigration and Corporate Law, the reciprocity measure announced by Petro would have negative effects for Colombia in receiving tourism.

“The British see Colombia as an important tourist site and if that decision is made it would negatively impact tourism. So what you should do is mediate so that measures are adopted from Migration Colombia with those people who want to travel to the United Kingdom,” Sánchez explained.

What do Colombians think about this decision by the United Kingdom?

On the streets of Bogotá, Colombians talk about this change in the requirements for those who wish to travel to the United Kingdom, and Petro’s reaction with the “principle of reciprocity.”

Néstor Rodríguez says that the decision is respectable because “there (in the United Kingdom) they must be saturated with asylum applications and the Colombians who decided to say that they need asylum to stay forced them to make this decision to prevent these people from entering. ”.

For her part, Ana Rojas regrets the decision because now “it will be much more difficult for those who want to travel,” who now “will have to plan their trips in advance because there are many who will be denied a visa.”

Citizen Daniel Sánchez said that the fact that the visa requirement is once again required for Colombians is due to “the immigration issues that have generated a crisis not only in the United Kingdom but globally. So not only in the United Kingdom should these strict measures be in place, but also here in Colombia.”

The Colombian Foreign Minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, said that “they will ask” the United Kingdom to “reconsider” its decision and that if it does not “receive” a favorable response, in that case Colombia will apply the principle of reciprocity and will also request a visa from tourists of that nationality who arrive in the country.

“We ask the United Kingdom to reconsider that decision and re-establish the visa exception for Colombian tourists. However, if this is not done, in the application of the principle of reciprocity that we are going to begin to apply now in these cases, Colombia would also have to impose a visa on tourists coming from the United Kingdom,” explained the head of diplomacy. Colombian.

In that sense, citizen Néstor Rodríguez “does not believe” that Colombia should require a visa for visitors to the United Kingdom considering that “tourism is going to be affected especially in areas such as the Colombian Caribbean.” Roberto Castro has the same opinion, who emphasized that the Colombian government “should not ask the British for a visa.”

For now, Colombia has not officially announced the application of the visa requirement for citizens from the United Kingdom, which according to figures from Migration Colombia, as of October 2024, more than 47 thousand people from that destiny.

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