The Chancery Rosewood

Standing in front of this familiar facade felt like stepping back into another chapter of my life. For years, to those of us involved with US visa applications, this was the spot for early mornings, visa interview nerves, clients clutching documents, and long lines curling around Grosvenor Square. This used to be the Embassy of the United States in London. Today it is a luxury hotel, the Chancery Rosewood, where guests stroll in for coffee and people chat along the in front of the iconic Eero Saarinen façade where anxious visa applicants once waited. The energy has shifted completely, yet that eagle still watches from above as if remembering every student, artist, entrepreneur, and family who stood under its gaze on their way to a new chapter in the United States.

The Washington Post: “Trump’s order will deny visas to immigrants who lack health-care coverage”

Last Friday, the White House issued a proclamation stating that effective November 3, 2019, the government will deny visas for immigrants who “will financially burden” the U.S. health-care system and will now require that foreign nationals demonstrate that they have health insurance or sufficient funds to cover health-care costs on their own before entering the United States. President Trump said he is issuing the proclamation to “protect the availability of health care benefits for Americans,” and that immigrants “who enter this country should not further saddle our health care system, and subsequently American taxpayers, with higher costs.”  

To obtain a visa, foreign nationals must prove they will be covered by “approved health insurance,” including a family or employment-based policy, within thirty days of entering the US, unless they have sufficient funds to cover their “reasonably foreseeable medical costs.” Doug Rand, a former Obama-era White House official tasked with immigration policy, said Trump’s proclamation will likely affect immediate relatives of US citizens waiting for permission to enter the US, including parents, spouses, and siblings (with children being exempt). Analysts predict that the proclamation could reduce legal immigration by up to sixty-five percent. The proclamation, Rand noted, does not appear to affect foreign nationals arriving on temporary work visas, refugees, or those seeking asylum at the Mexican border. Rand said that as “a matter of policymaking, this is an incredibly flimsy document” and called the new rule “a gigantic, sweeping change to the legal immigration system.”

New York Times: “Trump Administration Orders Tougher Screening of Visa Applicants”

The Trump administration is making it more difficult for millions of visitors to enter the United States by demanding additional security checks before issuing visas to tourists, business travelers, and relatives of American residents, all seemingly in fulfillment of a campaign promise to enact “extreme vetting.” Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has sent diplomatic cables to US Embassies and Consulates worldwide with these instructions for stricter vetting, basing them off a March 6 presidential memorandum ordering the secretary of state, the attorney general, and the secretary of homeland security to “implement protocols and procedures” to enhance visa screening. The new security checks generally do not apply to citizens of countries in the Visa Waiver Program, which includes thirty-eight member countries. The additional scrutiny, for example, will ask applicants about their background and social media history if a person has ever been in a territory controlled by the Islamic State. “Consular officers should not hesitate to refuse any case presenting security concerns,” Secretary Tillerson writes in the cables.  “All visa decisions are national security decisions.”

In 2016, the United States issued more than ten million visas, and this additional scrutiny is likely to lengthen the already bureaucratic process. “This will certainly slow down the screening process and impose a substantial burden on these applicants,” Greg Chen, the director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, tells the New York Times. “It will make it much harder and create substantial delays.” Chen questions how a single interviewer who conducts 120 interviews per day—at about five minutes per interview—can improve security. “It’s highly unlikely they could obtain information that demonstrates whether someone is a national security threat in such a brief interview process,” he says.