White House May Require Most Foreign Travelers To U.S. To Be Vaccinated

The Biden administration is reportedly developing a plan to require nearly all foreign travelers to the U.S. to be fully vaccinated amid the global surge of COVID-19 variants.

An official with knowledge of the plan told Reuters on Wednesday that the White House was eager to reopen U.S. borders to foreign visitors and was working “to have a new system ready for when we can reopen travel.”

The system would include “a phased approach that over time will mean, with limited exceptions, that foreign nationals traveling to the United States [from all countries] need to be fully vaccinated.”

NBC News  and The New York Times  later corroborated the report. 

It remains unclear when the Biden administration intends to lift its pandemic travel restrictions.

Due to the coronavirus, the U.S. has banned foreign visitors who have been in China, Brazil, India, Iran, Ireland, South Africa, the United Kingdom or 26 Schengen nations in Europe within the past 14 days.

Foreign travelers are also banned from crossing by land into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada unless they are considered essential workers.

As The New York Times noted , Biden has been facing mounting pressure to lift some of these travel restrictions, particularly as other nations like the United Kingdom and Canada have eased their own restrictions for vaccinated Americans.