Countries frustrated by U.S. visa waiver program.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: SECURITY BEAT: Homeland Defense Briefs

There is a long wait for countries wanting to join the privileged few whose citizens do not need to obtain a visa to enter the United States for business or pleasure.

No country has been added to the visa waiver program since 1999, and after 9/11, the requirements only grew tougher.

The wait is not unlike the one found outside U.S. consulates in such countries as South Korea and Poland, where applicants must stand outside in the heat, rain or cold for an opportunity to be interviewed by an official who has the power to reject applications.

The visa waiver program allows citizens of approved countries to arrive at a U.S. port of entry and receive a stamp in their passport good for a 90-day visit, without the $100 fee or a long application process in their home country.

The hold up for the hopeful nations is mostly a matter of security, said Stewart Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security. For a nation to qualify, it must offer a reciprocal visa to U.S. citizens, have a less than 3 percent rejection rate for those applying for visas in-country and adhere to the "law enforcement and national security interests of the United States," he said at a Heritage Foundation briefing.

The last qualification is vague, Baker admitted. It is a "sore point" for the approximately two dozen countries waiting to join the program, most of them from Eastern Europe.

"We have undertaken recently to be much more specific about this," Baker said. "We have to find a way through...