Episode 96: Portals, passports and program tips for winter holiday travel

Episode 96: Portals, passports and program tips for winter holiday travel

This episode of the BAL Immigration Report is brought to you by BAL, the corporate immigration law firm that powers human achievement through immigration expertise, people-centered client services and innovative technology. Learn more at BAL.com.

In this week’s episode, BAL’s Tiffany Derentz and Brendan Kinne discuss an updated travel program from the U.S. State Department and winter holiday travel tips. Plus, the latest immigration news.

From Dallas, Texas, I’m Rebecca Sanabria.

During the first seven months of 2024, it’s been estimated that 790 million people traveled internationally.

According to Google Flights, some of the top searched travel destinations for this year’s winter holidays include Cancun, Tokyo, London, Mumbai, Delhi, Barcelona, Bangkok and Sydney.

Booked international travel from the U.S. to Asia and Canada for Thanksgiving alone has increased year over year by 4% and 3% respectively.

BAL’s Tiffany Derentz, Senior Counsel in the D.C. office, and Brendan Kinne, Senior Director of Global Programs in the Houston office, joined the BAL Immigration Report to discuss updated programs and other factors that foreign national employees should consider while planning for the upcoming travel season.  

Kinne: Tiffany, we often speak about foreign nationals coming to the U.S., and today I wanted to start us off in a direction a little bit different. I wanted to ask about an updated program that the U.S. State Department has released called the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program and the benefit that that provides to U.S. nationals that are actually traveling abroad. Can you elaborate a little bit for us on what STEP even is?

Derentz: Absolutely. The Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, or STEP for short, is a free service that allows U.S. citizens and nationals to enroll their trip abroad so that the State Department can make contact in case of an emergency. It’s also a way to sign up for country-specific travel alerts — for example, if you have family in another country and you want to know what’s going on there.

Whether you’re traveling for work, on holiday or are temporarily relocating, if the State Department knows where you are, they can easily contact you if they need to. For example, if there’s a natural disaster in the area, the government is able to share information with you. This information also helps them to have a better sense of how many Americans are in country and may be in need of Overseas Citizens Services, such as evacuation assistance, which we’ve seen quite a bit of lately.

I know from having been in the government that this is a tool that the government definitely relies on as a means of knowing who is in the country and for contacting individuals. I’ve used it myself, so I definitely recommend that others do as well when they’re traveling.

Kinne: Tiffany, when you say “Use it, it’s a sign-up,” a traveler has to actually go in and give some feedback or some advice and information to the government.

Derentz: Yes. Here’s how it works: You go online and you create an account if you don’t already have one, and you submit some basic information, and then you pick what you would like to do. If you would like to receive the latest travel information about a country, then you can subscribe to those messages.

If you also want to enroll a specific trip — for example, if you’re going on vacation next month — you can go in and enter information about that. For example, this past summer, we went to Georgia, and so we went and put in the dates that we were going to Georgia, the different cities we would be, and I think also even the hotel. The government knew how long we were going to be in the country and where we would be at in proximity to where something might happen. That’s all you have to do.

You can update it every time you travel abroad or not at all. Obviously, if you don’t use the system, then you’re not going to get the information from the system, but it’s a very easy process. The initial setup I would say it takes about 20 minutes and it’s pretty easy to navigate.

Kinne: I think just the value of the U.S. government offering it overall for travelers in the United States is a huge benefit for us as U.S. nationals.

When we are abroad, you brought up the changing landscape out there in the world and the things that are there. It’s just very valuable in our respect. If somebody has had it before, do they re-enroll in this new program because it’s different or it’s just a matter of updating information?

Derentz: If somebody’s had a STEP account like myself, yes, you do have to re-enroll. I did it today before this so that I could see how the process was, and it was pretty easy. I did forget my password, so they had to email me a new one and reset that, but otherwise, I just confirmed some basic information and everything from my prior account was migrated over. It was done probably within five minutes.

Kinne: So you’re taking vacation again to go travel somewhere new?

Derentz: Actually, I am going to Europe in December, but that is not why I updated it. I updated it so I could see the new system and be in the new and improved STEP program. Everybody should use it.

Now, I actually want to switch gears back to foreign nationals, which is who we usually talk about because foreign nationals also might be traveling abroad in the coming months because we have the holiday time period coming up. First, I know that we talk about this often, but what tips do you have for foreign nationals? What types of things should they remember or keep in mind before traveling?

Kinne: Our best advice for foreign nationals really comes down to prior to traveling, check your U.S. immigration documents, especially the visa that you have. It’s vital to know the dates, vital to know the expirations and information related to those documents to help you with travel.

It also helps with facilitating the return to the United States and avoiding being turned around at an airport and having to do something before you travel back. Interruption in travel this time of year is more complicated because we’re going into end-of-the-year holidays where government offices will actually be closed.

In the summer months, we often talk about just higher volume of travel limiting availability. End-of-the-year holidays actually face closed governmental offices over a number of days. Make sure that even before you travel out that you’re taking a look at your documents and seeing if there’s anything that you need to do before getting on the airplane, I think is vital, vital advice that we have to give to people.

Derentz: I imagine a lot of people will want or need to renew their visa while they are abroad. What should foreign nationals know before they go?

Kinne: Appointment availability is getting better, but not all U.S. posts are going to be able to accommodate quick turnarounds. So planning ahead of time, if you know you need that visa renewal, getting on the appointment portal, which I definitely want to talk about before we get off here today, and ensuring that you can get the date around the time that you need in the processing.

When you pick the date on the calendar, also consider the length of processing time that the government will take to issue back your new visa. We always estimate around five to seven days, unless otherwise posted by a consular post, but during the holidays, we could see it go upwards of seven to 10 days with other days off in between.

Derentz: You brought up the portal. So going into the portal, checking what the calendar availability looks like, maybe now in advance of the travel and planning for that cushion of time before they need to travel back because it might be five days, seven days or even longer until they get the visa.

You said you wanted to talk about the portal. What’s going on with the portals?  

Kinne: Big changes on the U.S. side when it comes to appointment portals being used by U.S. consulate posts abroad. Each consulate, each country groups their setup in a way to where they can choose which portal, and they’re responsible for working with a team to have access and build out what they want to see in their portal.

Since mid last year, we noticed that multiple countries were set up or calendared to launch new portals to come, and we are now seeing it come to fruition in a much faster pace than we had up until this point. Within the last three months, over seven consulates or country groups of consulates have changed to a new U.S. portal.

I’d love to say it was one U.S. portal. We actually have seen the addition of two new portals. What we mean by portal is the actual website that you go to to set up your account and pay your fee and book your appointment slot.

The challenge that I see for people coming up in the weeks and or months ahead of us with travel plans is that the portals are still going through a little bit of growing pains in the use of them, the clicks, information that has to be loaded. Is it being accepted? Is it not? And the impact that that may have to somebody who has to urgently get an appointment, if the portal is not responsive enough or not helping them get the date that may be available to them, they’re going to be impacted in their ability to return.

We now see that the U.S. government across the globe is somewhere between four to five different portals being used. For a traveler who may be unfamiliar with it, it’s just a little extra time to get in and figure out which one is for you. Does it have your old information? Do you have to start from scratch? And is the website actually going to be working on the day and time that you’re trying to load in and secure a date and time?

Derentz: There’s a couple of new portals, but overall just several to work with. And some people who have had a visa before might be seeing a new portal than they’ve seen in the past and it may not work quite as smoothly. Is that what I’m hearing as maybe it has in prior iterations?

Kinne: A lot of them have just changed the technical framework of how the portal works. It is new, and so with anything new it’s going to be the trial and error of getting it right.

The U.S. government has been responsive to many of our comments on usage so far. Staff are being trained at their administrative teams to help support fixing things. But with it new, it’s just the challenge of it.

I have seen an increase from our clients contacting our U.S. consular team that I manage, asking for help with new portals in countries. So we’re starting to see some recurring trends. It’s just something before the holidays that we’d really call to the attention of people, start a little bit earlier and give yourself a buffer to make sure you can get that appointment date on the calendar.

Derentz: I know you and I and the consular team have had conversations about these portals, and we’ve been sharing information with the government as we run into issues that we know other applicants are also running into issues.

I think it’s really good to highlight for travelers in advance of the season that they might want to familiarize themselves with the system and take some time in advance to know what they’re getting since there have been so many changes and we expect to continue to see changes. I think that that’s really good.

Then you talked about appointment availability. I just want to expand on that a bit. We still have some high visa wait times in certain countries, depending on what type of visa you’re getting, but the government has made significant improvement the last couple of years. What are you seeing in real life, in real time right now about appointment availability in general?

Kinne: We’re seeing availability for employment visa-based applicants be much better than it has been ever since COVID.

Employment H, Ls, Os, those are in a capable spot for it. E-2s still have the registration part that goes into it, how the consulates deal with that, the timing that’s needed, a little bit different than employment-based, a little bit more challenging in that space.

The area that is still impacted the most is around the business travelers coming to the U.S. For a foreign national leaving the U.S., going home for a holiday, you’re probably in an employment visa category. You’re going to have some availability on the calendar to get dates.

For business travelers looking to come to the U.S., we are still seeing some very, very large wait times in some key locations such as China, India, Canada that are significant filing posts that we would hope to continue to see that. So employment side, much better than we’ve seen in the past few years. Business visas still need to catch up.

Derentz: That’s good to hear. And I think to your point earlier, it is the holiday season and there’s closures. So, the fact that the calendars look okay today does not mean that that will still be true come a month from now, once people have started making their plans. So that’s certainly something to keep in mind.

Get more information and insights on the State Department’s latest travel updates at bal.com.

And now, the top U.S. and global immigration news.

The Department of Homeland Security announced that certain Lebanese nationals currently residing in the United States will be eligible for Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure protections, with further details published in the Federal Register.

DHS also published a Special Student Relief Notice for F-1 nonimmigrant students who are Lebanese nationals. Eligible students may request employment authorization, work an increased number of hours while school is in session and reduce their course load while maintaining F-1 status during the DED designation period.

In global news, Irish officials announced that Immigration Service Delivery will now have the primary responsibility of managing renewal of Irish immigration residence permissions for persons residing in all counties.

The Italian government approved a law decree that introduces new provisions regarding the entry of foreign workers, including streamlining and improving the efficiency of entry procedures for foreign workers and introducing important changes to the application procedure.

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The BAL Immigration Report is provided by BAL. Copyright 2024 Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP. All rights reserved. Digital redistribution to the public is permitted only with express written permission of Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP. This report does not constitute legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship. Visit bal.com for more information.