[anigbrowl]

A travel authorization is not a visa

OF course it is, it's just a very accessible temporary one. Let's look at an uncontroversial definition of a visa (from Wikipedia): 'A visa is a conditional authorization granted by a polity to a foreigner that allows them to enter, remain within, or leave its territory.'

Just because you give things different labels doesn't make them actually different.

[EduardoBautista]

Well, then the USA doesn't issue any visas in this case.

Because the only thing that my US tourist visa allows me to do is to show up and ask politely to enter the country.

A US visa also does not give you permission to remain within the country, an I-94 does.

[anigbrowl]

I don't see the point of such extreme pedantry. Even the State Department uses 'visa' as a generic term. There are also other countries besides the US, and whichever one you come from probably also uses 'visa' as a generic term on their English-language websites.