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As discussed here, most people who have been present in India (or various other countries) within the last 14 days will not be allowed to enter the US.

However, a CBP article mentions "an advance parole document" on a list of documents that can be presented to establish that a traveller is exempt from the travel restriction from India. The confusing thing is that the Presidential Proclamation itself doesn't mention any exemption for AP holders.

One might think that the person who wrote the CBP article simply made a mistake. However, I've seen several reports of people managing to enter the US from India using an AP document, and who do not have any US citizen relatives or any other obvious grounds for an exemption.

It seems just barely possible that CBP has issued a blanket national interest exemption for AP holders entering the US from India, but I haven't been able to find any more details in official sources.

JJJ
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Brian
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1 Answers1

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Proclamation 10199, the entry ban of people who have been in India in the past 14 days, only applies to nonimmigrants.

Section 1. Suspension and Limitation on Entry. The entry into the United States, as nonimmigrants, of noncitizens who were physically present within the Republic of India during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States is hereby suspended and limited subject to section 2 of this proclamation.

So one interpretation is that entry on Advance Parole is not affected because you are not entering as a nonimmigrant (i.e. not entering into nonimmigrant status).

However, this creates an asymmetry between India and the other countries with geographic entry bans to the US. Those bans ban entry "as immigrants or nonimmigrants". Although there is a national interest exception for people with immigrant or fiance visas, that exception arguably doesn't apply to entry on Advance Parole because it's not an immigrant visa. (A later web page says there is a national interest exception that covers "immigrants"; I am not sure if this is intended to be more broad than the previous description or is just a simplified description.)

I am not sure whether there really is an asymmetry between India and the other countries with geographic bans, or whether my interpretation is wrong.

user102008
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  • I’d note that asymmetries and logical inconsistencies are in fact the norm for all Covid bans, not an exception. – JonathanReez Aug 08 '21 at 16:01
  • @JonathanReez while that is true, and it may be interesting to discuss from our point of view as frequent users of this site, it doesn't help terribly much in the specific case of someone with AP who wishes to travel to the US from India. – phoog Aug 08 '21 at 16:08
  • Just pointing out that asymmetry alone isn’t a reason to dismiss the question – JonathanReez Aug 08 '21 at 16:13
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    I'm inclined toward the line of reasoning that entering with AP is not entering as a nonimmigrant and therefore permissible. If you take that as your starting point, the inclusion on the list of exceptions of LPRs and non-citizen nationals is entirely unnecessary, and the omission of people with advance parole should not imply that they are subject to the ban. But, as JonathanReez notes, logical inconsistencies are par for the course, and relying solely on legal texts is risky. – phoog Aug 08 '21 at 16:15
  • @JonathanReez that's certainly true, though I didn't get the impression that anyone was dismissing it. – phoog Aug 08 '21 at 16:17
  • Thanks, this makes sense. What I find most likely is that around the time when the India travel ban and the national interest exception guidance were being prepared, an internal decision had already been made to exempt immigrants, so the India proclamation referenced nonimmigrants only, and the national interest exception was published later (possibly because it had to undergo a lengthy internal review at the State Department) ... – Brian Aug 12 '21 at 21:02
  • ... The CBP guidance specifically for India, having been written after the India proclamation, thus explicitly permits AP holders to travel from India to the US, whereas the older CBP articles were simply not updated to reflect this change. But I would guess that all AP holders are now exempt from the geographical bans. – Brian Aug 12 '21 at 21:03
  • As an aside, I think that a person who is inspected and paroled is not an immigrant either - they become an immigrant if either they overstay their parole, or if, their parole having been completed, they are inspected for admission and at that point are not classifiable as a nonimmigrant. Therefore, AP travel should have been permitted since the beginning of the geographical COVID-19 travel bans. Whether or not CBP would agree with me on that, I'm not sure. – Brian Aug 12 '21 at 21:13
  • @Brian: Technically, "immigrant" is defined as any alien who is not in a class of nonimmigrant. So under this definition, I believe that an alien who is paroled, or even an alien who is outside the US, would be an "immigrant". – user102008 Aug 12 '21 at 23:01
  • I'm aware of that definition, but I don't think the actual usage in the INA is that broad. The wording of INA 101(a)(15) seems like an instruction on how to classify aliens who are seeking admission, and all usages in the INA seem consistent with this narrow scoping. (I guess if that were true, I would also have to retract my earlier statement about people who overstay parole being immigrants). But I could very well be wrong about this. – Brian Aug 12 '21 at 23:12
  • It seems that the State Department agrees with this answer: only nonimmigrant entry is restricted by the ban, so AP entry is not. https://forums.immigration.com/threads/recording-for-june-10-2021-conference-call-with-rajiv-s-khanna.344483/post-2555290 – Brian Aug 30 '21 at 18:00