The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- United States (all U.S. embassies and consulates)
- Level
- Federal
- Authority
- INA §§ 221, 222; 22 C.F.R. parts 41-42; the Secretary's authority over consular operations
- Issued
- 2020-03-20 Mar. 20, 2020
- Effective
- 2020-03-20 (all routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visa appointments cancelled) (read as 2020-03-20)
- End
- 2020-07-15 (phased resumption post by post, Ex. FED-328); routine services restored post by post through 2021 (read as 2020-07-15)
- In force
- Mar. 20, 2020 to July 15, 2020
- Quarters
- 2020 Q22020 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Travel and quarantineOther
- Addressees
- all visa applicants worldwide
- U.S. employers, universities and families awaiting visa issuance
- Functions reached
- HR foreign hires, transferees and students could not obtain visas
- LB H-2A and H-2B labor confined to emergency and interview-waiver processing
- TV inbound business visitors (B-1) could not obtain visas
- CB foreign customers and distributors
- MK inbound trade-show attendance
- Collection
- Federal commerce, travel, workplace and finance layer FED-B
Operative words
[The Department of] State is temporarily suspending routine visa services at all U.S. Embassies and Consulates. Embassies and consulates will cancel all routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visa appointments as of March 20, 2020.... Last Updated: March 20, 2020
Enforcement
Notes
The consular counterpart of the entry proclamations: for 2020 Q2 and half of Q3 the United States issued no routine visas anywhere in the world.
Retrieval noteRendered offline from the Wayback Machine capture of the Department's page (2020); the live page refuses automated fetches.