The Trump Administration has just announced a non-essential travel ban with Mexico. This action now includes Mexico along with Canada in enacting travel restrictions. Yesterday, I detailed that the U. S. State Department raised the travel advisory level to “4”, its highest level. If you missed this comprehensive list of restrictions, you can read it here. Mexico is the seventh-largest country in the world in terms of tourism.
Mexico Travel Restrictions
The Customs and Border Patrol will enforce these new regulations for non-essential travel to and from Mexico beginning tomorrow, 21 March 2020. Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf made it clear that those entering the United States without complete documentation will be denied entry. He and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that this is needed to prevent COVID-19 from entering the U. S. even though there is no evidence linking COVID-19 to migrants entering from Mexico. Statistics from Johns-Hopkins University show only 118 cases of COVID-19 in Mexico.
The order also creates restrictions for all non-essential travel between Mexico and the United States. This will affect tourism and recreational traffic across the borders. There are exceptions to this new set of restrictions for:
- Medical treatment,
- Education,
- Health care employees and
- Those engaged in trade between borders.
Transportation for trade commerce between the United States, Canada and Mexico will not be affected. The travel restrictions between the three countries are indefinite with no estimate of the duration of these restrictions.
This announcement only mentioned border crossings. It did not mention airline travel between the two countries. This news is still breaking and I will update this story as more information becomes available.
Final Thoughts
This pandemic is a fluid situation changing day-by-day and hour-by-hour. Travel Codex will continue to monitor and update travel conditions as the situation changes.
