US Ban On Travellers From India Is Hitting Hard On Indo-American Families

Several families in the US find themselves separated from their loved ones as over 13,000 kms away across two continents as the US Govt ban on travellers from India in view of 2nd wave of the pandemic.

In some cases, the main earning member of the family has been left stranded in India, with no way to rejoin their spouses and kids in the US while in some other instances, mothers have been separated from their young children as one of the unintended consequences of the travel ban announced by President Joe Biden last week.

The proclamation signed by Biden on April 30 came into effect on May 4. Certain categories of students, academics, journalists and individuals have been exempted from the ban, according to the US State Department. The travel ban is for an indefinite period given the major outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Some of these people say that they are now stuck in India for an indefinite period as the American consulates have also been shut down.

India is struggling with an unprecedented 2nd wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with more than 3,00,000 daily new COVID cases being reported in the past one week.