Are the Americans going to be able to come and spend the summer in Europe without the converse being true? “I hope that the United States will soon return the favor and open its borders in complete safety to European travelers,” the European Union’s ambassador to Washington, Stavros Lambrinidis, called on Twitter in recent days. The question is asked for tourists but the answer is expected, as a priority, by foreign residents in the United States. “American citizens with a European work visa were able to make the round trip during the pandemic, which was not the case for Europeans,” he also recalled.
“Tens of thousands of European nonimmigrant visa holders in the United States – whether they are investors, temporary workers or other types of exchange – are still being told that they cannot not to return to their country of origin – because, if they leave, they risk not being authorized to return to their temporary residence in the United States ”, criticizes Célia Belin in a note. “Purgatory has lasted too long”, launches the guest researcher at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
“Travel ban” renewed
In March 2020, Donald Trump had imposed a “travel ban” on Europe, prohibiting entry into the territory of any non-American traveler or permanent resident (green card) who had stayed in the Schengen area during the previous 14 days . A ban lifted just before his departure from the White House in January, but immediately reintroduced by Joe Biden, in the name of the “risk of transmission” of Covid.
The derogatory procedure for obtaining a laissez-passer (“exception in the national interest” or NIE) has also tightened in recent months, forcing a number of expatriates to give up travel or, for those who have come to France despite everything. , to spend two weeks of transit in a country not subject to the “travel ban” – often Mexico.
With a contained pandemic and widespread dissemination of vaccination, the regulatory status quo exasperates Europeans living in the United States. “The situation is absurd: the NIE request can only be made once physically in France and we are not sure of being able to return to the United States, when we have our family there, our activity and that we are vaccinated ”, criticizes Stanislas Ruszkowski, president of The Boxoffice Company and installed in California for five years with an investor visa.
“Sanitary excuse”
According to a text published at the end of May, the State Department now provides for the possibility of granting laissez-passer to those providing “executive direction for important economic activity in the United States”. But “the sanitary excuse no longer applies. We are now hoping for political pressure to ensure reciprocity, ”says Isabelle Marcus, of Columbus Consulting Group, which manages immigration cases. Joe Biden will be in Europe for a G7 meeting, June 11-13, and attend a summit with the European Union on June 15.
For those who apply for a first visa or have to renew their expired visa, months of waiting are also looming. An executive of a large French company, who requested an appointment in April to renew his visa, has just obtained it for… March 2022. Until then, it is impossible for him to leave American territory: he will not could not come back.
Excluding the duly justified accelerated procedure, the Paris consulate even displays “400 calendar days” of waiting for non-immigrant visas. “The Covid-19 pandemic has led to deep reductions in visa processing capacity,” explains a State Department agent, who indicates that he is “unable to provide a specific date” for a return to normal .
15% of level two years ago
In April, nearly 248,000 non-immigrant visas (for business, studies, internships, intra-company transfers, investors, etc.) were granted by the United States worldwide: this is twice as many as in October. last year but this is still only 30% of the April 2019 level, according to (provisional) data from the State Department. In Paris, 727 visas were granted in April, about 15% of the level of two years ago. Over the first seven months of fiscal year 2021 (October to April), 1.2 million non-immigrant visas were issued globally, compared to 8.7 million for the full fiscal year 2019.
Donald Trump last year put a stop to the granting of certain work visas (H1-B, J, L…), in order to promote American employment. The directive expired on March 31 and Joe Biden did not renew it, but the demands are piling up. Non-immigrant visas are also not a priority, recalls the State Department. The files of American citizens abroad are processed first, then immigrant visas and finally those of non-immigrants.
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