International visitors to the U.S. from Visa Waiver Program countries are now required to apply for travel authorization online. And even if your travel authorization is approved, that approval only authorizes a traveler to board a plane or cruise ship for travel to the United States without a visa. In all cases, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers make admissibility determinations at ports of entry or preclearance facilities. After they put the stupid visa waiver program in place, and all hell broke loose, they couldn’t let it continue the way it was and they didn’t want to tick off the Europeans by canceling it, so they added the ESTA program, the online travel authorization, on top of the existing system (or lack thereof). ESTA looks like it will go a long way toward keeping out undesirable visa waiver passport holders. We can only pray.
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