The White House announced a new travel policy on October 25th, 2021 that effective Monday, November 8, 2021, all foreign nationals (including international students and scholars), will need to show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 in order to be able to enter the United States. The accepted vaccines will include FDA approved or authorized and WHO Emergency Use Listing vaccines. Please refer to the CDC website   for more information. This document provides a quick visual summary.

In short, you will need to show proof of vaccination. A list of acceptable vaccines can be accessed here. There are very limited exceptions, which include:

• children under the age of 18
• those traveling in F-1 or J-1 status from countries with limited COVID vaccines
• those who have medical reasons (will need letter)

Those who receive an exception will be required to attest to complaince with  public health requirements, including testing and quarantine, and a requirement to be vaccinated in the U.S.

Effective July 20, 2021, USCIS eliminated a prior policy that required applicants applying to change their status to F-1 student to file “bridge” applications while their change of status to F-1 applications were pending. For the USCIS news release, please go here. For more detailed information, please go here.

Due to the high volume of COVID cases in India, a travel ban on India will go into effect at 12:01am on Tuesday, May4th. However, on April 30, 2021, the Department of State extended the same set of National Interest Exceptions to India that he had previously applied to all other regional travel restrictions currently in effect as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students seeking to commence or continue their studies in the fall, certain academics, journalists, and individuals who provide critical infrastructure support in countries affected by a geographic COVID-19 restriction may qualify for a National Interest Exception. This now includes qualified applicants who have been present in India.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has been very delayed in processing and sending receipts for OPT and STEM OPT applications. As a result of advocacy on the part of students, school officials and partner organizations, together with court litigation, on February 26, 2021, USCIS announcedflexibilities for students impacted by these receipt delays.

Please note that these flexibilities apply only to applications received on or after October 1, 2020, through May 1, 2021. In summary, for eligible applicants, USCIS will offer the following flexibilities:

• Retain the original filing date of a rejected filing if an applicant refiles his or her rejected application.
• Allow the 14-month period during which the 12 months of standard post-completion OPT must be completed, to start following the approval of the EAD, rather than the program end date. If you receive an approval with less than the full 12 month amount of OPT time requested, you can request a correctionof the EAD due to USCIS error. USCIS will issue a corrected EAD with a new end date to cover the full amount of OPT time recommended in the original application.

Although lockboxes will continue to reject OPT applications with a missing or deficient signature, if such an application is accepted by the lockbox and makes its way to a USCIS adjudicator, USCIS will issue an RFE for the proper signature instead of denying the application.

Read the proclamation here. The countries include Brazil, China, Iran, Ireland, Schengen area, United Kingdom and now South Africa has been added to the list.