Hello, everybody, and welcome to our Thursday Breaking News live here on YouTube.
And I wanted to come on live right now because there was... we have quite a few updates from the
State Department, specifically about the travel ban proclamations, specifically the one that
applies to the Schengen countries, also to South Africa, Iran, Republic of China. And as you know,
people that are applying for K1 visas were not able to get visas because of the Proclamation. And
also, there are a lot of restrictions that those embassies were putting on those K1s and
immigrant visas. Well, today, a couple of days ago, a lawsuit was filed. And today, we have
an announcement from the State Department for some big changes as to how they're going to be treating
those visas. And I was going to go into this, and I'm going to show you exactly what the update is,
and also answer your questions because I know a lot of you
are trying to figure out how you can get visas, when you can get visas, and how you can
enter the United States under this restriction. So, once again, in today's video, we're going
to talk about the most recent update from the State Department today when it comes specifically
to K1 visas and immigrant visas and a few other non-immigrant visas. Specifically, how people can
actually enter the United States under these proclamations. So, let me share my screen.
I'm going to show you in a second, right here. Here we go. So, right now we are…
this is the most recent announcement from the State Department. And as you can see, there
is an update, specifically a national interest exception to these travel bans, specifically,
travel ban 9984, 9992, and 10143. These proclamations restrict the entry of individuals
coming from those countries. They have to quarantine for 14 days outside of
the United States before entering, specifically from China, from Iran,
from the Schengen Area, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Brazil, and South Africa. So,
what are the actual changes? The changes as of April 8, as of today, national interest exceptions
apply for people that are applying for K1 visas, and immigrant visas from these particular
countries, from South Africa, from Schengen, from the United Kingdom, from Iran, these people
are now should be a priority. So, individuals should be contacting their individual embassies.
And they're going to be essentially a priority to be able to get those visas
from those countries. So, there's no worry about them being blocked or anything like that.
And also, the good news is that if you are coming from any of these countries, under these visas,
you don't have to quarantine anymore for 14 days. Now, that remains to be seen, how CBP is going
to look at that and how CBP is going to apply this because we don't have any clear guidance,
but we do know is that this is an announcement that we have on the State Department's website.
So, specifically, we have a national interest exception for K1 visas, for immigrant visas.
Embassies need to start issuing those visas. And there shouldn't be any bar to enter the
United States for people that are applying under these categories. These national visa interest,
these national interest exceptions also apply for certain exchange visitors,
people that come on a J1, different categories. They list them in different sections. So,
if you come in as an au pair to help you a citizen or LPR, you should also be able to get a visa and
not subject to the 14-day travel ban. So, the different levels of au pair. There's also a
travel foreign exchange program under particular terms agreed by the United State government. So,
it's good, specifically for those that are coming in a J1. So if you're on a J1 and you
fit into any of these categories, you should be able to enter and travel into the United
States now. So, let's see. Also, for pilots and aircrew from certain... from these countries,
there also shouldn't be any issues for you, guys, to use this exception and to be able to
come into the United States. What is interesting is that we had... there's a lawsuit that was filed
literally this week, specifically against the State Department, stating that because they are
not allowing people to enter the United States under these travel bans, the embassy is actually
not issuing visas because those travel bans are now prohibiting people from coming in here.
Those proclamations are not prohibiting the embassies from issuing visas but the fact is that
those embassies were not issuing visas. And so, this litigation didn't even go anywhere. And next
thing, we have today's announcement from the State Department, just like I showed you, five minutes
ago, that now, there are exceptions, specifically K1s. They were really suffering from these,
and also for immigrant visas from these countries. So, as of today, the travel
ban does not apply to these categories. And not only they are able to get visas,
they should be getting visas by scheduling their appointments with their particular embassies,
but also, they're able to come to the United States without the need to quarantine in any
foreign country. So, this is great news. I think that, again, the administration definitely can
do more. And therefore, you've got the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and quite a few
lawyer organizations, and private attorneys, they came together to sue the State Department
to essentially say that it's time for them to issue visas and stop holding people hostages
back in their country. So, hopefully, this information is helpful. Once again, I'm going to
post that link in the description of this video for more information about the lawsuit and also
a link to the State Department's announcement from today. So, those of you that are impacted,
you will know exactly what to do. Once again, for those of you that are watching this, if
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please text me at 619-483-4549 and I'll be more than happy to assist you to set up a consultation
and get your case moving forward as well. So, as I said, just a quick live to let you know
that we have some big news specifically for K1s and immigrant visas that were subject to the
travel ban of the Schengen Proclamation. Well, as of today, those people are able
to get visas and they don't have to quarantine anymore as they arrive in the United States.
So, questions, let me know in the comments, and I look forward to engaging with you there.
And I'll see you in our next video. Once again, thanks for watching. I'll see you soon.