Imported post
I'm checking the veracity of this 'news' as I have no independent, or other, corroboration. More when I have it:
[Jeanne wrote]:
"On 1st October 2003, entry to the USA whether for a stay or on transit will be refused to holders of 'old style' EU passports which do not contain the machine readable two-line codes at the bottom of the biographical data pages, unless they have a valid immigrant or non-immigrant visa. If you are planning a trip to the States, or are looking at those nice and affordable Bahamas Holidays via Miami after 1st October, get busy getting yourself a machine readable passport 'pronto' to benefit from the Visa Waiver programme, or, you'll have to make an appointment an interview to be vetted at the US Embassy for a visa, which may actually take several weeks to get.
Hope this will help many divers and non divers to avoid last minute panic and worse!
Jeanne"
I'm checking the veracity of this 'news' as I have no independent, or other, corroboration. More when I have it:
[Jeanne wrote]:
"On 1st October 2003, entry to the USA whether for a stay or on transit will be refused to holders of 'old style' EU passports which do not contain the machine readable two-line codes at the bottom of the biographical data pages, unless they have a valid immigrant or non-immigrant visa. If you are planning a trip to the States, or are looking at those nice and affordable Bahamas Holidays via Miami after 1st October, get busy getting yourself a machine readable passport 'pronto' to benefit from the Visa Waiver programme, or, you'll have to make an appointment an interview to be vetted at the US Embassy for a visa, which may actually take several weeks to get.
Hope this will help many divers and non divers to avoid last minute panic and worse!
Jeanne"