US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) published a notice in the Federal Register stating that effective September 14, 2020, flights carrying passengers who were recently present in China (excluding the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau), Iran, the twenty-six countries of the Schengen Area, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Brazil will no longer be required to land at one of fifteen designated airports in order for passengers to undergo COVID-19 health screenings. This notice only relates to the cancellation of health screenings at designated US airports but does not lift or change the country-specific COVID-19 travel restrictions (which were issued January 31, 2020, February 29, 2020, March 11, 2020, March 14, 2020, and May 24, 2020) for the countries listed above, the immigrant visa travel ban (Presidential Proclamation 10014) or the nonimmigrant visa travel ban (Presidential Proclamation 10052). The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) CBP Liaison Committee confirmed with CBP that the travel restrictions remain in place and those affected by the restrictions will still be required to obtain a National Interest Exemption (NIE) to travel to the US.

About ending the health screenings, the Federal Register stated: "Terminating this effort will allow public health resources to be more effectively reprioritized for other containment and mitigation efforts and will stimulate air travel." This change comes as Johns Hopkins reported increases in new COVD-19 cases for France and Spain, which are on the list of "10 current most affected countries" along with the US and Brazil. Cases in the UK this month are also rising. Still, the notice stated: "Continuing activities will include an illness reporting system and a passenger education process carried out in tandem with other enhanced public health measures implemented within the passenger air transportation system in collaboration with industry.”