No Change in Practice After Biden’s Repeal of Iran Travel Ban

WASHINGTON (Kayhan Intl.) -- U.S. President Joe Biden’s quick January repeal of his predecessor’s travel ban on Iran has not yet revived Iranian arrivals to the United States, but it has reignited a debate about which Iranians the U.S. should allow to enter and whether existing methods for vetting them are effective.
Biden repealed former president Donald Trump’s travel ban on Iran and 12 other nations within hours of taking office on January 20. He said the visa restrictions on citizens of those nations, seven of them predominantly Muslim states in the Middle East and Africa, were inconsistent with a U.S. tradition of welcoming people of all faiths and undermined national security.  
In the 40 days since Biden revoked the travel bans, there has been no influx of Iranians to the United States, according to the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) advocacy group.  
"Anecdotally and looking at the U.S. travel restrictions that still remain in place, I don’t think there has been a significant change [in Iranians entering the U.S.] thus far. And I don’t expect that to change immediately,” said NIAC policy director Ryan Costello in a VOA Persian interview.  
A variety of U.S. travel restrictions affecting Iranians remain in force. Biden decided to continue Trump’s pandemic-related ban on travelers who were physically present in Iran for 14 days preceding entry or attempted entry into the United States.
Biden also has made no changes to Trump’s 2019 entry ban for senior Iranian government officials and their immediate family members and 2019 designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.
A 2012 ban on Iranians seeking to enter the United States for higher education courses that would prepare them for careers in Iran’s energy sector or nuclear program also remains in effect. It was signed into law by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, for whom Biden served as vice president.  
Iranians not affected by those ongoing restrictions have faced other recent obstacles to obtaining U.S. visas. In a Monday press briefing, U.S. Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services Julie Stufft said the pandemic has "drastically decreased” the number of visa applicants whom the State Department can service at its overseas facilities and has reduced the number of visa processing personnel who can safely work at those facilities.  
Costello said the U.S. vetting system is strong enough to compensate for the absence of Iranian information-sharing about visa applicants, citing U.S. rejections of many such applicants for lack of verifiable background
 information before Trump’s travel ban took effect in 2017.  
"Iranian visa applicants have to detail a ton of information about who they are, where they worked, whether they were ever drafted into the IRGC, and a bunch of other things. There are ways [for the U.S.] to get the information that it needs [to vet such applicants],” he said.  
Not so, said U.S. attorney Stewart Baker, who served under former President George W. Bush as Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy and recently wrote that revoking the travel ban seems to reopen U.S. borders to dangerous individuals. "We don’t know Iranians’ motives for coming here, because it’s very hard to figure that out with the information that we have,” he told VOA Persian in an interview.  
Speaking to VOA Persian last month, U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul said Iran’s status as an enemy of Washington makes the vetting process for Iranian visa applicants "very difficult, if not impossible.”