International visas

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 02:11:42PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> Sandro and I had an interesting chat regarding travel visas, and
> here's the agreement we arrived at.  The following is based on our
> reading of the Swiss entry process, which is fairly easy to
> understand.  I've tried to be general about the guidelines so this
> might work in other places as well.
> 
> * If a traveler requires a visa to enter the country where FUDCon is
>   held, and that traveler's costs are approved, we should also cover
>   their visa costs.  This includes an application fee, insurance, and
>   any other related cost required for travel, provided the costs are
>   reasonable.
> 
> * Costs for items like passports, which have long-term benefits far
>   beyond FUDCon travel, should be handled by the traveler, not FUDCon
>   funding.
> 
> * In some cases, it's possible for a foreign mission or embassy to
>   require an official sponsorship to approve the traveler's visa.  To
>   sponsor a traveler means that the sponsor guarantees that person's
>   costs (possibly within some limit) to the state the traveler is
>   visiting.  This can happen if the embassy/mission judges that the
>   incoming traveler is a high risk for either remaining in the state
>   beyond their permitted time frame, or some other criteria not under
>   our control.  This is probably a very unlikely situation for our
>   travelers.
> 
>   We can't ask community members to provide this sort of sponsorship,
>   because it makes them liable for these costs.  If the embassy or
>   mission returns with this requirement before it will grant the visa,
>   then we would have to decline.  That means we would lose a little
>   money on an airfare, and the traveler wouldn't be able to attend.
>   The risk is low and seems worth taking, since we want to encourage
>   international visitors to FUDCons in their region of the world.
> 
> 
One more thing, somewhat tangential to this -- The passport and visa process
can be quite long.  People from Brasil told me that getting a US visa in
Brasil takes a minimum of 3 months.  This is not necessarily the maximum
amount of time to expect in other countries either....

Perhaps something to be added to the "asking for funding" requests for
international travelers is: Do you need to get visa/passport to attend?  If
so, how far in advance do you need to know about funding in order to also
have your visa/passport forms processed?

-Toshio
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