Originally Posted by
chil
Nobody cares about foreigners here.
I hold "the highest possible rank" employment visa (O1A -- extraordinary abilities), which means that the fact that I am qualified to do the job the American applicants cannot (and hence I am not competing at the "normal" job market) is certified by the Department of Labor -- I still cannot travel with it -- they request the stupid NIE every time and the embassies in Europe/UK are extremely unresponsive and slow. Moreover, I work for the US government -- even this does not help. I don't know -- maybe I should contact the lawyers at my workplace (we have a plenty of them in the DC office and they all do nothing most of the time) and sue the government?
im in the same situation as an L-1A visa holder. But the quote from the article is correct. This ban is nonsensical and is frozen in time. I spent the day in Cairo today where nobody was wearing masks, social distancing, or even really caring if coronavirus was a real thing (basically just like being in Texas I guess…), and yet I can fly back to Houston today no problem. But if I was in Germany instead I would be banned from entering. It also applies to transit visits which means I had to book a flight which doesn’t transit through Europe.
i caught covid six months ago (in the US) and am vaccinated. If I wanted to vacation in Europe with one of my coworkers who are all anti vaxers, they would have no problems returning and I would be banned fir 14 days. Yes, that is the privilege of citizenship to be able to return to your own country (unless you happen to be Australian but that’s another story), but it still highlights that the ban makes no sense.
one thing I have noticed since moving to the US is that absolutely everything is political. Everything! No exceptions. If they removed the ban there would be a chorus of right wing media coverage saying that the administration is importing COVID into the country from foreigners. Most Americans don’t know about or care about this ban, and so the easiest thing for them to do is nothing, even though it is clearly sub-optimal from a public health perspective. America is a strange place indeed. And yes, I accept I am a hypocrite for still wanting to live there.