5khours

Depends on the CBP agents, who routinely make up their own arbitrary rules and ignore existing laws and court decisions.

GUWonder

The US and Sweden have no general prohibition against dual-citizenship, and it is something people have pursued and will pursue as a response to this development. [One consequence of a Swede becoming a US citizen might be more cumbersome US tax compliance or other reporting requirements; but the impact of that varies from person to person.] For some of the Persian Brits and Persian Swedes whom I knew to have US LPR status at least earlier, my comments to them this weekend often touched upon this theme: "Are you a US citizen yet, and what's the status of your relatives?" The ESTA prohibition based on travel and/or dual-citizenship status was already a warning shot across the bow of the ship for many Persian Europeans, but that shot was aimed at visitors and not at legal immigrants.

You're looking for how the travel ban applies currently? How the ban functions going forward is unclear. As of this morning in Europe, Iranian dual-citizens with non-immigrant visas for the US are still being denied even boarding to the US. I'd take that as them being denied entry too as a result of this ban. For Iranians or Libyans with US student visas, my recommendation is to not leave the US under the current circumstances unless willing to accept the fact that they wouldn't have been able to return under the current circumstances. Much the same for those with some US visas for work, although some of those circumstances may be different enough to make a difference.

Carl Johnson

I was going to mention that if you hadn't. And not just them. The DHS head issued correct guidance on the LPR question, but this got overruled by Bannon.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...MhdbsBuowyZ_HQ

GUWonder

Airlines have been forced by this ban to re-work their flight crew assignments.

Here's SAS being hit by this:

http://www.thelocal.se/20170131/sas-...umps-entry-ban

Will airlines and others sue for damages arising from this ban? I doubt it with airlines, but I would hope (but not necessarily expect) that they would be successful.

About the inclusion of US LPRs in the ban, <deleted by moderator> Time will tell more. As just about anyone with any legal sense at DHS, DOJ and State ought to have known, hitting LPRs with an entry ban would result in a legal storm of problems. <deleted by moderator>.

invisible

Based on internal memos from couple of tech companies - they are advised NOT to leave US at all.

P.S. Side note - I got the same recommendation when I changed my B1 status to H1 in 1999. I was told that if I leave US until I got green card I might not get H1 in my passport. As a result I did not leave US for seven years until I got my GC.

GUWonder

Recommendation (to not leave) for persons seeking a change of visa/residency status is rooted in a different basis than the recommendation (to not leave) for persons not seeking a change of visa/residency status but covered by this entry/travel ban.

MSPeconomist

Students are generally being told to contact their university's foreign student office (or whatever it's called) before planning any foreign travel, although for many students not from one of their seven countries, this can generally be good advice, particularly if someone has a single entry student visa. Obviously the advice provided by universities can be of varying qualify. I would hope that students with ties to the seven countries would seek information from other sources too.

By late January, most foreign students would already be in the USA for winter quarter or spring semester courses. The exception could be colleges on a 4-1-4 calendar, which often feature off campus or international projects during the January term.

Others caught by the timing would include graduate students participating in conferences abroad or those interviewing for jobs outside of the USA.

lonelycrowd

I know this was the case for MIT. AFAIK, they're really scrambling to get a few of their students back.

There's so much confusion coming in from the various sources my wife and I follow that we're still coming up with more questions than answers. I'm not even able to keep up with all the OMNI threads at the moment. We are especially anxious to know what decisions are going on inside State with respect to the rescheduling of cancelled interviews - are they going to preemptively reassign cancelled interviews to dates soon after 4/28, or are they going to wait for the ban to lift (if we take certain politicians at their word that this is indeed time-limited despite the likelihood of reciprocal provocations) and then slowly begin sorting though the mess? Do they have a plan to move rapidly on diversity and other visa categories if an injunction or ruling forces them to do so?

MSPeconomist

Traditionally Harvard had study week and final exams in January. If they still follow this schedule, it would be another example of a university calendar that could have many students abroad right now.

I just saw a disturbing news item that the government told the USOC that travel bans shouldn't impact athletes traveling to the USA for international events as they will get expedited access to the USA. IMO if there are exceptions or processes for expediting the situation, we should first grant this privilege to researchers and (legitimate) students, especially those doing advanced degrees.

GUWonder

State is like a chicken with its head cut off in this regard on this matter, both at Foggy Bottom and at our posts abroad. So getting answers on this won't be all that definitive (in terms of being truly deliverable) for a while, especially when even the senior careerists and other leftovers aren't able to rely upon the White House for direction on this since the bandwidth to communicate into and out of there is restricted, intimidated or intimidating. It will take a while until things normalize enough for there to be consistency of process, something needed for consistency of operational planning and responding to the public based on reliable information and policy. Whether or not this state of affairs lasts until the courts or Congress hold feet to fire, it's not clear; but I wouldn't hold my breath. I have to go back to people at State in the 1970s and 1980s to even get a sense of this stuff and they say they don't know what to make of this other than to expect it to be a situation of waiting so as to avoid landing in trouble.

beachmouse

A number of World Championships/World Cup/Olympic event contracts are written with 'must admit' rules for the host entity, who presumably works with national immigration officials to make sure any needed waivers are in place for properly accredited delegations. FINA (aquatics) contracts with the UAE for a lot of events and is able to require that the country admit Israeli passport holders as a condition of hosting. (The Russians also did a ton a visa waivers a few years back on short notice when they were late replacements as hosts for the World Figure Skating Championships after Japan was suddenly too busy with dealing with earthquake and tsunami recovery to go through with original hosting plans)

As it would be unfortunate for the Los Angeles Olympic bid to have World Championship events scheduled for the USA to see participants barred from entry by an immigration order, I can understand the quick statement that waivers would be approaching soon.

lonelycrowd

It doesn't. Fortunately, Harvard officially started last week - though, as usual, the Ph.D.'s beyond the coursework phase and staffers without instructional responsibilities tend to trickle in later.
That's my greatest fear right now... that the ban eases slowly with individual orders deeming that vetting is tightened enough for specific subpopulations of visa applicants, public outrage starts to wane, and Iranian diversity visas remain blacklisted.

Another thing that we're wondering about is whether any details are emerging about how, exactly, the visa vetting will become more extreme. Is there anything substantive that they are looking for with the executive order that the current administrative processing procedures don't provide? (AP itself is shrouded in a fair bit of secrecy, but whatever they do sure seems to take a lot longer than typing names into electronic databases...) CBP may be giving us some hints of what DHS considers valuable to know about Iranian LPRs with the reports of social media screening and questioning about political views - it would sure be nice if someone sent the memos circulating in that agency over to Wikileaks right about now.

That's what we are afraid of. If it looks like there is an opening where they are starting to clean up this mess, we may engage counsel to reach out to Embassy Abu Dhabi and see if there is anything we can do to get our family member's case back on track faster - but until then are just going to have to sit tight and find a way to continue with our lives. Thanks, as usual, for your insights.

Now, to try to get a tiny bit of work done today...

GUWonder

So is the entry to US embassies/consulates now banned to citizens (even dual-citizens) of these countries on the same grounds as for those banned from entry at US airports/landports/seaports of entry? Some seem to think so. This could result in some interesting outcomes, even for US citizens seeking consular services.

US embassies/consulate are generally not US soil even as they have host country-granted privileges that provide them sovereign guarantees to be able to operate with autonomy under their own sovereignty in line with standing international law, but that doesn't seem to register with everyone.

tanja

The US embassy in Stockholm is not open for people from these countries at all.

tanja

Yes I am swedish. I do know the above. Thanks though.