White House won't rule out vaccine mandates for domestic travel and claims 'everything is on the table' on the day the US border reopened to international visitors for the first time in two years
The White House wouldn't rule out a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel as the U.S. reopened airports to fully vaccinated international travelers Monday - after nearly two years of restrictions.
'We say this all the time – everything is on the table,' White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing Monday after she was asked about potential vaccine requirements for domestic travel.
'We just don't have an announcement to preview right now on this,' she continued. 'So I don't have anything more to share on the domestic travel.'
The comment is concerning for people who oppose the administration imposing vaccine mandates on private industry.
It's especially a sore spot after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration last week imposed widespread vaccine mandates on private companies and businesses with 100 or more employees.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wouldn't rule out on Monday implementing a vaccine mandate for domestic travelers
The comments come as the U.S. reopened border and international flight to fully vaccinated travelers on Monday. A man carrying a British passport arrives to applause at JFK on Monday morning on one of the first tourist flights from the United Kingdom
The rule already faces backlash, and several lawsuits and legal challenges from Republican states. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals over the weekend temporarily suspended the vaccine mandate.
On Monday, international travelers got a win after the U.S. reopened travel to those fully vaccinated.
Many who have been separated for months were reunited on Monday at airports across America as COVID travel restrictions for international travelers finally lifted after 20 months.
The first flights were British Airways Flight 001 carrying 331 passengers and Virgin Atlantic Flight VS3 carrying another 350 arrived at JFK in New York City shortly after 11am at Terminals 4 and 7 from London's Heathrow.
An Air France flight from Paris arrived at JFK around 10:30 a.m. and others from Mumbai and Delhi flew into Newark, New Jersey, reuniting couples who have not seen each other for nearly two years. As they landed, hundreds more were checking in at KLM and Lufthansa desks at airports in Munich and Amsterdam.
Others flew in from Germany and India, meeting grandchildren for the first time and reuniting with their expat kids.
Dutch entrepreneur Mark Ogertsehnig lifts up his fiancee Natalia Abrahao at Newark Airport on Monday morning after flying in from Amsterdam on the first tourist flight. The couple got engaged last March but have not been able to be together full-time
Paul Campbell (L) who has not seen his fiancee Patricia Bittag (R) of Hamburg, Germany for over 23 months, embrace outside the Customs and Border Protection gate at Boston's Logan International Airport on Monday
Lai Wi, 31, and his wife, Hui Ling, have been married for the last three years. However, they've gone two years without seeing one another due to travel restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Huiling travelled from Shanghai and Wi drove from Charlottesville, Virginia, to collect her. As he waited for her at Terminal 1 at JFK, he told DailyMail.com: 'I'm holding my tears back while waiting for my wife. I drove all the way from Charlottesville to pick her up
Until now, the only people who have been able to enter the US from those countries are American citizens, green-card holders or those who obtained national interest exemptions.
Starting Monday, international travelers can visit the US again so long as they prove they are fully vaccinated and have a negative COVID-19 test.
The only exemptions to the vaccination requirement are for kids under 18, who also need a negative COVID test if they are aged over two, diplomats, US military personnel, people with medical exemptions and a small number from countries where the vaccine rate is less than 10 percent. Religious exemptions are not permitted.
The vast majority of those arriving today are expected to be British or European travelers, visiting family in the US for the first time.
British Airways had 26 flights to the U.S. on Monday, including six to JFK from Heathrow, bringing 8,600 passengers who were previously banned.
Virgin has 10 flights to the US from the UK today, carrying 4,500 people, and Delta is operating three from the UK to land at Detroit, Atlanta and JFK.
The travel ban lifting does not just reunite families and friends again - it will start to fill a $300billion hole that was left in the economy when international travel came to a grinding halt.
'After nearly two years of restrictions, Monday begins in earnest the return of international travel, when long-separated families and friends can safely reunite, travelers can explore this amazing country, and the U.S. is able to reconnect with the global community.
Five-year-old Bowie Erebara waits for his aunt and uncle to arrive at JFK on Monday from Heathrow. They have been separated for nearly two years by the travel ban that was finally lifted
Jill Chambers (R) of Manchester, England is reunited with her sister Louise as passengers arrive from the first British Airways flight to arrive since the U.S. lifted pandemic travel restrictions on November 08, 2021 in New York City
Jill and Stephen Brownbill react as they meet their newly born grandson Rocco while arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport
'It is a monumental day for travelers, for the communities and businesses that rely on international visitation, and for the U.S. economy overall,' said U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow.
The countries that were banned account for just 17 percent of the world but a huge 53 percent of US tourism in 2019.
It will take until 2024 for travel income to return to what it was. Over 1million jobs were lost as a result of the travel ban, including those at airports and among airlines.
In 2019, 371,912 international travelers were processed by Customs and Border Patrol agents on an average day.
That number fell to 169,842 in 2020.
It's unclear how many CBP agents and TSA agents will now be brought back to work as a result of the ban being lifted.
A spokesman told DailyMail.com that there are 25,000 spread across the whole country's ports and airports.
They wouldn't say how many were at each port or airport, or how the numbers had changed over the last two years.
Passengers arrive at JFK from Heathrow on board Virgin Flight VS3. It is the first tourist flight from the UK to arrive in 20 months
A family from Wales arrives at JFK on Monday morning after taking Virgin Atlantic Flight VS3 from Heathrow on Monday morning
British Airways put balloons in the terminal and New York City street signs to welcome tourists back after 20 long months
The land border from Mexico, which remained closed while air travel was allowed, is now reopen, and there are snaking lines of trucks and cars at it already.
Canadian travelers can now drive across the border too for the first time but they must return home with a negative COVID-19 test.
Travel across land borders from Canada and Mexico has been largely restricted to workers whose jobs are deemed essential after Donald Trump imposed the ban in March 2020 as Covid-19 spread around the world.
At the San Ysidro crossing port at Tijuana, Mexico, street vendors were taking food to drivers stuck in the line-ups overnight as thousands of Mexicans, many of them separated from their families for months, are set to pour across the frontier today.
The astonishing backup of cars and trucks comes amid the worst migrant crisis at the southern border since 1986 with more than 1.7 million illegal entrants into the US between October last year and September 2021.
Illegal crossings began skyrocketing in the months after President Joe Biden was inaugurated, with his administration accused of encouraging a humanitarian catastrophe after breaking from Trump's tough border policy.
At Niagara Falls, there was a trail of cars and RVs stretching across the Rainbow Bridge as Canadians head over from Ontario to New York state for some long-awaited American tourism.
The long lines to get into the US from Mexico come amid a continuing crisis at the border, as the number of migrants arrested at the southern border in the 2021 fiscal year is the highest since 1986, new Customs and Border Protection data shows.
The data, which is still unpublished but was obtained by The Washington Post, shows that border authorities detained more than 1.7 million migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border between October 2020 through September 2021.
The data is expected to be released publicly late this week.
Illegal crossings began skyrocketing in the months after President Joe Biden was inaugurated – and while the administration initially tried to blame Trump's policies for the increase, migrants have repeatedly said they made the trek to the U.S. with the belief the new administration would allow them to stay.
'They weren't wrong,' North Carolina Representative Dan Bishop tweeted of migrants' assumptions about being able to stay in the U.S. illegally under Biden's leadership.
Another pull, migrants said, was the labor shortages in the U.S. exhibiting to them a need for workers.
In another dismissal of the growing crisis, Biden described the rise in spring 2021 as consistent with seasonal norms. That, however, did not remain true as the highest-levels of illegal crossings came during the hottest months of the year, July and August.
More than 200,000 migrants were taken into CBP custody each month.
Biden's team has continued to dismiss the crisis at the southern border, refusing to call it just that – a crisis – even as humanitarian issues emerged with overflowing holding and processing centers that reportedly served undercooked or spoiled food to unaccompanied minor migrants, as well as limited outdoor time and shower use.
Cars wait in line at the San Ysidro Port of Entry as the Mexico-US border reopens in Tijuana, Mexico November 8, 2021
MEXICO: Isabel Gonzalez, 63, (third from left) a Tijuana resident and one of the firsts non essential travelers to cross to the United States, queue at San Ysidro crossing port on the Mexico-United States border in Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico, on November 7, 2021
MIDNIGHT AT MEXICO BORDER: Monica Lozano (c) hugs her sister and niece after the U.S. reopens its border in El Paso, Texas
CANADA: People stand by a border-crossing point, as the U.S. reopens air and land borders to fully vaccinated travellers for the first time since restrictions were imposed, in Niagara Falls, New York, U.S. November 8, 2021
CANADA: Cars line up at a checkpoint after crossing the Peace Bridge from Canada to the United States on Monday, Nov. 8, 2021, in Buffalo, N.Y.
The US is bracing for a flood of vaccinated international visitors from all countries after COVID-19 travel restrictions are lifted on Monday - but tourists should expect to be turned away if the were inoculated with a shot of the Russia or China versions.
Foreign travelers are being warned of long lines and crammed conditions as US airports expect a swell of tourists who haven't been allowed to visit since the pandemic lockdowns began in March 2020.
'It's going to be a bit sloppy at first,' Delta Air Lines Chief Executive Ed Bastian warned.
'I can assure you, there will be lines unfortunately,' Bastian said, adding that 'we'll get it sorted out.'
Incoming visitors must also have received a vaccine that was approved by the FDA or WHO - which excludes shots such as the Sputnik V from Russia or the CanSino from China.
In terms of travel conditions, airlines such as United are expecting about 50 percent more total international inbound passengers on Monday as compared with the week before.
Delta also said it has seen a 450 percent increase in international point-of-sale bookings, compared to the six weeks prior to the announcement that the US was reopening.
'As we expect high demand when the US lifts its existing air and land travel restrictions Monday, we are taking critical steps to be prepared by providing additional resources,' White House spokesman Kevin Munoz said on Twitter.
For passengers, the lifted restrictions will allow them to visit family members, friends, and loved ones who they have been apart from since the start of the pandemic.
The rules have barred most non-U.S. citizens who within the prior 14 days have been in 33 countries -- the 26 Schengen countries in Europe without border controls, China, India, South Africa, Iran, Brazil, Britain and Ireland.
Trade group U.S. Travel said the countries accounted for 53 per cent of all overseas visitors to the United States in 2019 and border communities were hit hard by the loss of tourists crossing from Mexico and Canada.
The group estimates declines in international visitation 'resulted in nearly $300 billion in lost export income' since March 2020.
In fiscal year 2021, more than 1.7 million migrants were taken into U.S. custody, new numbers being released later this week reveal. Here a group of migrants are process by immigration officials after crossing illegally from Mexico into Roma, Texas on September 30
The total encounters in FY 2021 are the highest since 1986 and far surpass any migration numbers in the surge during Donald Trump's presidency
Haitian migrants wait on Tuesday to board a boat that will take them to Colombia as they trek from South America to the U.S. – in a sign the migration crisis will not cease any time soon
U.S. airlines are boosting flights to Europe and other destinations that were impacted by the restrictions.
Airlines are planning events on Monday with executives meeting some of the first flights.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and United Airlines President Brett Hart are holding an event at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport Monday to mark the reopening.
U.S. officials also are planning an Instagram live chat on Nov. 9 to help answer questions.
Many international flights are expected to operate close to full or full on Monday, with high passenger volume throughout the following weeks.
Airlines will check vaccination documentation for international travelers as they currently do for COVID-19 test results.
At land border crossings, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will ask if travelers have been vaccinated and spot check some documentation.
Children under 18 are exempt from the new vaccine requirements.
Non-tourist travelers from nearly 50 countries with nationwide vaccination rates of less than 10 per cent will also be eligible for exemption.
Also Monday, new contact tracing rules will take effect requiring airlines to collect information from international air passengers if needed 'to follow up with travelers who have been exposed to COVID-19 variants or other pathogens.'
In addition, hopeful foreign travelers who have received the unapproved Sputnik V and CanSino shots are now pushing to get US-approved vaccines to gain access into the country.
The Sputnik V vaccine has been used in about 70 countries worldwide.
Both vaccines became one of the first registered for their respective countries during summer 2020 only months after the global COVID outbreak.
The WHO has yet to approve the Sputnik V vaccine for an emergency list using despite mass worldwide distribution.
US Homeland Security Border Patrol agents on horseback patrol the area near where the US-Mexico border fence meets the Pacific Ocean in Imperial Beach, California
'There are exactly zero reasons for such decisions,' Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the foreign relations committee in the Russian Duma said, according to Associated Press.
'The effectiveness and safety of the Sputnik V vaccine has been proven not only by specialists, but also by its practical application.'
Russia was added in the high-risk travel category this week by the CDC as a surge of cases have been reported. The country also only has a 34 per cent vaccination rate.
China has yet to ease travel restrictions, despite 75 per cent of the population being vaccinated.
Other Asian Pacific countries, however, have began the process of opening their borders to foreign travelers.
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