Visas and International Travel. The Beninese English learner's podcast 🇧🇯🇺🇲

When I lived in Benin many people asked me many questions. Some of them annoyed me. They made me feel angry and sometimes they seemed impolite to an American. One common question I heard from all ages of people. My students would ask me to take them to America, or to adopt them. This is naive, but adults asked a similar question too. Many men asked me to find them a job. They said they could pay for the plane ticket if I could just find them a job. And Many women asked me, well, they asked me to take them to America and that they had a passport.

Unfortunately you need more than just a passport to move to America. So today I will tell you all about the visa, the types of visa, and why it is so difficult to get an American visa. Let’s get started.

Usually when you travel internationally  you need three documents for the customs agents. Customs agents are workers in an airport who talk to international travelers. In French you call them douaniers. The first document you will give a customs agent is your passport. A passport is only an identity card. It is syour international identity and you get your passport from your government so it is easy to get a passport.

The second document you might need is a record of vaccinations. When I moved to Benin I got several vaccinations in the United States before coming to Benin. The vaccination that I remember the best is a yellow fever vaccination. This proves that I am not carrying a deadly disease, a dangerous disease, to a new country.

The third document is the most important or the most difficult to get. It is the visa, and the visa comes from the government where you are going. It does not come from Benin. It will come from your destination’s government and that is why it is difficult to receive. A visa tells the country why you are entering. Many many people want to move to America, so America does not allow, it does not permit all travelers to enter the country. If it did there would be too many people in America. So the US only offers a few kinds of visas. 

There are two categories of visas. The first one is the nonimmigrant visa and it is for temporary travel. You cannot move permanently to the United States with a non-immigrant visa. To move is a verb that means to change location. I can move a football. I move the football from my car to my house, but move also means to change houses. To go to a new house. In French this meaning is demenager. So a non-immigrant visa is only for a temporary visit. The first non-immigrant visa is a tourist visa and this is for 3 months in the United States. The second kind of non-immigrant is a student or study visa. This is for going to university in the US and it lasts for 4 years, usually. The third kind of non-immigrant visa is an employment visa, but it is for temporary employment. Usually seasonal workers, and usually these seasonal workers come from bordering countries like Mexico. 

The second kind of visa is an immigrant visa and this is for people who are moving permanently to the United States. These are difficult to get. The first kind is a family visa and you must have direct family living in the United States. The second kind i s a fiance visa and you must be married to an American. The third kind is permanent employment, but remember you cannot enter the country without the visa, so you must contact companies and businesses from Benin. You must be hired while you are in Benin to get this visa. YOu cannot move to the US and ten get an employment visa. The fourth kind is the diversity lottery and this is held through embassies, the US embassy in Cotonou. The diversity lottery is very very difficult because many Beninese people put their name on the list.

So do you see why this question made me feel a little angry? I had no power to give a Beninese person a visa. There was nothing that I could do. I cannot give you direct family in the US. Your mother must live in the US to get a family visa. Pardon, Il n'y a pas d'espace !