Miles-long traffic delay greets drivers trying to get into the US from Mexico ahead of Biden lifting travel restrictions on Monday

• Photos taken Sunday evening showed long lines of people in cars at the US-Mexico border waiting to get in as non-essential travel returns 
• The US is expected to face a surge of foreign visitors as COVID-19 travel restrictions lift on Monday
• Travel across land borders from Canada and Mexico has been largely restricted to essential workers for the past 20 months due to COVID
• This comes amid a continuing crisis at the border, as the number of migrants arrested at the southern border in the 2021 fiscal year is the highest since 1986 
• Airlines warn foreign visitors of congested line and crammed airport conditions
• Foreign visitors are expected to have received US-approved vaccinations and will be checked for proper documentation
• Vaccines such as Sputnik V and CanSino have not been approved by the US 

Cars were lined up for miles to get into the US from Mexico on Sunday night ahead of the Biden administration lifting travel restrictions on foreign visitors today. 

Travel across land borders from Canada and Mexico has been largely restricted to workers whose jobs are deemed essential for the past 20 months due to the pandemic. 

Rival airlines British Airways and Virgin Atlantic operated synchronised departures at 8.30am from London Heathrow to New York JFK to celebrate the end of the travel ban imposed by Donald Trump in March 2020.  

Under rules first announced by President Joe Biden in September, fully vaccinated visitors are allowed to enter America.

Unvaccinated children will be allowed to enter the United States if they are traveling with a fully vaccinated adult. 

They must also provide proof of either a negative test taken no more than three days before travel, or that they have recovered from Covid in the previous three months.  

Long lines at the United States-Mexico border as travel for vaccinated, non-essential workers returns

Cars lining-up to cross the border at San Ysidro crossing port on the Mexico-United States border in Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico, on Sunday night

The Biden administration warned of long lines and told travelers to have their paperwork ready at the border

Travel across land borders from Canada and Mexico has been largely restricted to workers whose jobs are deemed essential for the past 20 months due to the pandemic

A line of Canadian travelers in their cars or motor homes, stretches across the Rainbow Bridge between Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls New York, on Sunday night

Pastor Seth Clark leads a weekly Sunday Mass for a congregation on the Mexico side from Friendship Park near where the US-Mexico border fence meets the Pacific Ocean in Imperial Beach, California

Customs and Border Protection also urged people traveling for non-essential reasons to avoid crossing at peak times

President Joe Biden has been dealing with a continuing crisis at the southern border

Finally… it’s lift-off to the US! America eases travel ban for fully vaccinated British tourists TODAY as BA and Virgin plan synchronised Heathrow departures to celebrate 

America has finally eased its Covid travel ban for fully vaccinated British tourists today, as thousands jet off for long-awaited reunions with family and friends for the first time in 20 months.

Rival airlines British Airways and Virgin Atlantic operated synchronised departures at 8.30am from London Heathrow to New York JFK to celebrate the end of the travel ban imposed by Donald Trump in March last year as Covid spread across the planet.  

Under rules first announced by President Joe Biden in September, fully vaccinated visitors from countries including the UK, Ireland, China, India and South Africa will be allowed to enter America. They must also provide proof of either a negative test taken no more than three days before travel, or that they have recovered from Covid in the previous three months.

Virgin Atlantic cabin crew staff at London Heathrow Airport’s T3 ahead of the departure of Virgin Atlantic flight VS3, which will perform a synchronised departure on parallel runways alongside British Airways flight BA001, heading for New York JFK to celebrate the reopening of the transatlantic travel corridor

The easing will see thousands of Britons flying to America to reunite with loved ones for the first time in more than 600 days. British traveller Alison Henry, 63, who plans to fly to see her son in New York today, said: ‘It’s been so hard, I just want to see my son.’ 

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said it was a ‘significant moment’ as transatlantic travel has ‘long been at the heart of UK aviation’. He added that the ‘vitally important’ UK-US flights routes boost the economy, create British jobs and help develop plans to reduce carbon emissions from flying. 

Industry leaders expect the easing of restrictions to provide a significant boost for the travel sector which has been hammered by the virus crisis, but have warned of massive queues at airports all throughout November due to an ‘onslaught of travel all at once’. 

Speaking to MailOnline today, Paul Charles, CEO of travel consultancy The PC Agency, praised the relaxation as ‘the pivotal moment when travel out of the UK is far closer to normality’.

But with 49 per cent fewer flights scheduled this November than there were in the same month in 2019, he urged governments to continue ‘winding back restrictions and make it easier for consumers to travel without a myriad of online forms and tests’.  

He said: ‘The transatlantic air corridor was one of the top three busiest routes in the world and today marks a giant leap back towards levels of travel pre-pandemic. But statistics from data analysts Cirium show that, despite the US borders re-opening, there are still 49 per cent fewer flights scheduled this November than there were in the same month in 2019.

‘Global travel is back to some 60 per cent of what it was Pre-Covid so there is still a long way to go before the sector is firing on all cylinders.’ 

The long lines to get into the US from Mexico come amid a continuing crisis at the border, as the number of migrants arrested at the southern border in the 2021 fiscal year is the highest since 1986, new Customs and Border Protection data shows.

The data, which is still unpublished but was obtained by The Washington Post, shows that border authorities detained more than 1.7 million migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border between October 2020 through September 2021.

The data is expected to be released publicly late this week.

Illegal crossings began skyrocketing in the months after President Joe Biden was inaugurated – and while the administration initially tried to blame Trump’s policies for the increase, migrants have repeatedly said they made the trek to the U.S. with the belief the new administration would allow them to stay.

‘They weren’t wrong,’ North Carolina Representative Dan Bishop tweeted of migrants’ assumptions about being able to stay in the U.S. illegally under Biden’s leadership. 

Another pull, migrants said, was the labor shortages in the U.S. exhibiting to them a need for workers.

In another dismissal of the growing crisis, Biden described the rise in spring 2021 as consistent with seasonal norms. That, however, did not remain true as the highest-levels of illegal crossings came during the hottest months of the year, July and August.

More than 200,000 migrants were taken into CBP custody each month.

Biden’s team has continued to dismiss the crisis at the southern border, refusing to call it just that – a crisis – even as humanitarian issues emerged with overflowing holding and processing centers that reportedly served undercooked or spoiled food to unaccompanied minor migrants, as well as limited outdoor time and shower use.

The US is bracing for a flood of vaccinated international visitors from all countries after COVID-19  travel restrictions are lifted on Monday – but tourists should expect to be turned away if the were inoculated with a shot of the Russia or China versions.

Foreign travelers are being warned of long lines and crammed conditions as US airports expect a swell of tourists who haven’t been allowed to visit since the pandemic lockdowns began in March 2020.

‘It’s going to be a bit sloppy at first,’ Delta Air Lines Chief Executive Ed Bastian warned.

‘I can assure you, there will be lines unfortunately,’ Bastian said, adding that ‘we’ll get it sorted out.’

Incoming visitors must also have received a vaccine that was approved by the FDA or WHO – which excludes shots such as the Sputnik V from Russia or the CanSino from China. 

The list of approved US vaccines for travelers include Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. 

In terms of travel conditions, airlines such as United are expecting about 50 percent more total international inbound passengers on Monday as compared with the week before.

Delta also said it has seen a 450 percent increase in international point-of-sale bookings, compared to the six weeks prior to the announcement that the US was reopening.

‘As we expect high demand when the US lifts its existing air and land travel restrictions Monday, we are taking critical steps to be prepared by providing additional resources,’ White House spokesman Kevin Munoz said on Twitter.     

For passengers, the lifted restrictions will allow them to visit family members, friends, and loved ones who they have been apart from since the start of the pandemic. 

Bhavna Patel is booked on a Monday flight from London to New York to see her first grandchild after watching him grow up on FaceTime for more than a year. 

Another passenger, Anna Zwing, 28, is flying from Frankfurt to Chicago to see her boyfriend for the first time in over two years. 

‘My boyfriend and I are super excited and are counting down the hours til we’re finally reunited again!’ Zwing said in an email, according to CNN. ‘He keeps telling me that he can barely sleep out of excitement.

Cars lining-up to cross the border at San Ysidro crossing port on the Mexico-United States border in Tijuana

A pedestrian walks past a line of Canadian travelers in their passenger cars or motor homes on the Rainbow Bridge between Niagara Falls, Ontario and Niagara Falls, New York in the early hours of Monday

Canadian cars stretch across the Rainbow Bridge between Niagara Falls, Ontario and Niagara Falls, New York

Cars wait to cross the US border on Sunday night ahead of Biden’s announcement on Monday

Canadian travelers wait in line to cross the border into the United States across the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, Ontario

‘For me it’s still so surreal that it’s actually about to happen! So I’ll believe it when I land in Chicago.’

The rules have barred most non-U.S. citizens who within the prior 14 days have been in 33 countries — the 26 Schengen countries in Europe without border controls, China, India, South Africa, Iran, Brazil, Britain and Ireland.

Trade group U.S. Travel said the countries accounted for 53 per cent of all overseas visitors to the United States in 2019 and border communities were hit hard by the loss of tourists crossing from Mexico and Canada. 

The group estimates declines in international visitation ‘resulted in nearly $300 billion in lost export income’ since March 2020.

U.S. airlines are boosting flights to Europe and other destinations that were impacted by the restrictions. 

Airlines are planning events on Monday with executives meeting some of the first flights.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and United Airlines President Brett Hart are holding an event at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport Monday to mark the reopening.

U.S. officials also are planning an Instagram live chat on Nov. 9 to help answer questions.

Many international flights are expected to operate close to full or full on Monday, with high passenger volume throughout the following weeks.

Airlines will check vaccination documentation for international travelers as they currently do for COVID-19 test results. 

A US Homeland Security Border Patrol agent on horseback patrols the area near where the US-Mexico border fence meets the Pacific Ocean in Imperial Beach, California on Sunday

Pedestrians and cars queue to cross the border at San Ysidro crossing port on the Mexico-United States border in Tijuana

A street vendor stands between cars queueing to cross the border at San Ysidro crossing port on the Mexico-United States border in Tijuana

US Homeland Security Border Patrol agents on horseback patrol the area near where the US-Mexico border fence meets the Pacific Ocean in Imperial Beach, California

At land border crossings, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will ask if travelers have been vaccinated and spot check some documentation.

Children under 18 are exempt from the new vaccine requirements. 

Non-tourist travelers from nearly 50 countries with nationwide vaccination rates of less than 10 per cent will also be eligible for exemption.

Also Monday, new contact tracing rules will take effect requiring airlines to collect information from international air passengers if needed ‘to follow up with travelers who have been exposed to COVID-19 variants or other pathogens.’

In addition, hopeful foreign travelers who have received the unapproved Sputnik V and CanSino shots are now pushing to get US-approved vaccines to gain access into the country.

The Sputnik V vaccine has been used in about 70 countries worldwide.

Both vaccines became one of the first registered for their respective countries during summer 2020 only months after the global COVID outbreak.

The WHO has yet to approve the Sputnik V vaccine for an emergency list using despite mass worldwide distribution.

‘There are exactly zero reasons for such decisions,’ Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the foreign relations committee in the Russian Duma said, according to Associated Press. 

‘The effectiveness and safety of the Sputnik V vaccine has been proven not only by specialists, but also by its practical application.’

Russia was added in the high-risk travel category this week by the CDC as a surge of cases have been reported. The country also only has a 34 per cent vaccination rate.

China has yet to ease travel restrictions, despite 75 per cent of the population being vaccinated. 

Other Asian Pacific countries, however, have began the process of opening their borders to foreign travelers.     

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