The United States will keep its land borders closed to travellers for at least another month.
As the US seeks to reduce its COVID-19 case count, the Department of Homeland Security announced that border restrictions on non-essential travel have been extended once more, this time through September 21. The limits were earlier extended until August 21.
DHS tweeted on Friday: “In coordination with public health and medical experts, DHS continues working closely with its partners across the United States and internationally to determine how to safely and sustainably resume normal travel.”
These limitations have been extended every month, since March 2020, when DHS and its Canadian and Mexican counterparts closed the borders to leisure travellers to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Travel restrictions on the Canadian side of the border have been relaxed since then, with the country reopening early this month to fully vaccinated US citizens and permanent residents. Travelers from the United States can fly into Mexico and Canada, but the Canadian government will soon require all air travellers and passengers on interprovincial railways to be COVID-19 vaccinated.
Despite the fact that the United States has one of the highest rates of new COVID-19 cases in the world, travel trade groups and world leaders have pressed the Biden administration to ease travel restrictions.
According to research from Johns Hopkins University, the United States currently accounts for around one-fifth of all new COVID-19 cases worldwide. Over the last 28 days, the United States had recorded over 3 million COVID-19 cases, compared to 38,197 cases in Canada and 465,635 cases in Mexico, as of Friday morning.
The US Travel Association’s senior vice president of public relations and policy, Tori Emerson Barnes, issued a statement on Friday condemning the extension.
“Entry restrictions were urgently needed before effective COVID-19 vaccines were widely available, but these shutdowns carried a steep price.”
She added that according to the trade group, entry restrictions will result in the loss of more than a million American jobs and $150 billion in export revenue by 2020.
What you should know about these travel restrictions:
- The mandate does not preclude nationals of the United States from returning home.
- The restrictions apply to both land and sea travel.
- The Department of Homeland Security said it is still enforcing immigration rules at all US borders, including between ports of entry.
– India’s new age travel digital media
