<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by saint:
Brazil was just doing that because the US was doing it to Brazilians. Whenever we raise our fees for visas Brazil reciprocates. The whole thing is idiotic since the USA doesn't need tourism dollars and Brazil desperately does.
Brazil doesn't have the infrastructure to handle the photos and fingerprinting of everyone. Sooner or later they probably will do away with it for good. Many local governmental agencies are against the whole idiotic process.
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Brazil is well within its rights to treat US citizens in the same way the US treats its citizens. You can argue that the fact that it needs the tourist dollars makes it all the more admirable that they are willing to take a stand on a point of principle.
Fortunately as a European citizen I'm not
directly affected by the reciprocity measures. However on my recent trip to Brazil it only took 5 mins to exit GIG. All US tourists were taken aside for fingerprinting/photgraphing leaving the immigration agents free to process other tourists. Conversely it took 45mins+ to get thru MIA as the immigration agents were tied doing up the photographing/fingerprinting themselves. So who really has the best infrastructure for carrying out these measures?