exit visas
Leave-the-country documents
Exit visas are government permits required to leave a country.
While most nations allow free departure, some authoritarian states require citizens to obtain official permission before traveling abroad—a mechanism for controlling population movement and preventing emigration of dissidents, professionals, or military-age men.
Soviet Jews struggled for years to obtain exit visas.
- permitOfficial written authorization
- passportGovernment-issued travel credential
- authoritiesThose holding official control
- state securityProtecting governmental stability
- emigrationLeaving homeland permanently
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- travel documentspassport, passports, travel document, travel documents, passport stamp
- Soviet EraUSSR, Soviet Union, Soviet rule, CCCP, Eastern Bloc
- East GermanyStasi, GDR, DDR, Berlin Wall, East Germany
- Soviet controlgulags, secret police, show trials, purges, collectivization
- East German policystate education, state pensions, full employment, planned economy, free healthcare
- GDR policiesplanned economy, state ownership, Berlin Wall, travel restrictions, collectivization
exit visasfreedom of movement
Liberty to travel unimpeded
open borders · travel freedom · visa-free travel · Iron Curtain
exit visastourist visas
Travel authorization for vacationers
work permits · residence permits · green cards · right of entry
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