WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration will ease travel restrictions allowing Chinese students to come to the United States for classes this fall and from other countries where most non-U.S. citizens remain barred from the United States, government officials told Reuters.
The U.S. State Department is set to announce later on Tuesday it is expanding its national interest exemptions to cover students and academics around the world starting Aug. 1 after it made the change in March for European students, officials said.
Because of COVID-19, the U.S. currently bars most non-U.S. citizens from the United States who have been in China, Brazil, South Africa, Iran and most of Europe within the prior two weeks. Now students from all those countries will be eligible to come to the United States this fall. The largest number of international students in the United States are from China.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)