How I got a National Interest Exemption from the US to enter through the travel ban.
There are two ways to enter these United States through the covid-19 restrictions. I got an NIE and flew over. Otherwise you could take a two week layover.Here's an honest guide for how you can do it.
“But how did you get back into the States?” This is the question everyone has been asking me since I landed in San Francisco from Bangalore. If you’re also stuck outside the US even though you have a valid US visa on your passport, then this might help you.
Quick background
After Joe Biden came to office, he imposed new travel bans that deny entry to travelers who have been in certain countries within 14 days prior to landing in the US. The travel bans apply to 30+ countries including India, South Africa, UK, China, and the Schengen region, basically countries with high infection rates and new variants.
Waiting for these restrictions to lift before you travel to the States might mean waiting for 6+ months.
I’m an Indian citizen with a US H1-B visa, and I needed to get back to work. So, I decided to come up with a plan to get back to San Francisco.
There are two ways to enter the US if you’re in one of these countries right now. You can get a National Interest Exemption to bypass the travel ban. Or, you can take a 2-week layover via a country that is not subject to the travel ban. I will tell you how to do both.
Note: these travel restrictions don’t apply to US citizens, Green card holders, and their relatives. F1 visa holding students also have a special path available. This is most relevant to H1-B visa holders. See FAQ.
The National Interest Exemption Route
I had rather urgent work in the US. So, I decided to apply for a National Interest Exemption (NIE) as well. To apply for the NIE, you have to email the embassy that issued your visa with some basic information, a justification letter, travel details, and evidence for the justification. I’ve shown the email addresses to the Indian embassies here (you’re welcome).
To pick the national interest category, you have to introspect where your work fits into the narrative of US vital interests within approved categories - examples are supporting critical communications, medical, logistics, and other economic infrastructure.
I work as a Sr. Product Manager at Twilio. You may have never heard of this company, but a lot of the services you use every day use Twilio behind the scenes. Every time you text your Uber driver, or call up your Bank, chances are that you’re using Twilio communications. Amongst 100k+ such customer use-cases I had to pick an urgent example to justify why the US should give me an exemption from the travel ban.
To justify getting an NIE, Twilio’s excellent lawyers helped me pick and show evidence of how my team’s products are affecting the interest of the US by powering the national Covid-19 response. Every time someone uses US vaccine services like the text or call line they’re using a product that my team at Twilio has built.
How did I show evidence? I got a letter from my manager explaining my role in the projects related to Vaccines.gov (I’m the product manager). I added reasoning for why I’m needed in the same time zone (I’m missing critical meetings while working from India). I showed proof of these claims (example: I attached screenshots from our slack thread about the Vaccine text line), and I showed proof of urgency (attached correspondence showing the looming project deadlines, and recent urgency especially from when messages spiked as Joe Biden announced our product in his speech last week).
Remember, you don’t get the NIE by showing off ALL the things you do. Pick one example of how your work affects US national interests in the allowed categories.
My wife and I got the NIE on Wednesday at 6pm. We packed and left for the airport 4 hours later and landed in the US on Thursday afternoon.
In case the NIE doesn’t pan out or you don’t want to apply. Take the 2-week layover route.
The 2-week layover route
Indian citizens need visas to enter most countries, and India imposed its own bans on outgoing flights on May 1, 2021 (I wrote about how it felt to be in India on this infamous day).
Thus, I needed to optimize for multiple things - a country that I could still fly to from India, didn’t need to get special visas, is not subject to the US travel ban, and ideally doesn’t have mandatory quarantine requirements so that we’re not stuck in an expensive hotel room for 14+ days. Using Kayak’s amazing tool, I evaluated travel restrictions across 200+ countries and landed on this itinerary that might also work for you too.
Simply, get a flight to Mexico, stay there for 2 weeks, get a Covid test 2 days before leaving Mexico and then fly to your US destination.
The overall cost of this itinerary will be about $7k per person, or $12k for a couple.
I’ve been celebrating being back in the same time-zone as my team. I hope you’re able to successfully get where you need to go as well. If this article can help someone you know, do share it with them. If you think I can help you, please feel free to comment on this article.
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