A shadow passes over her face as she slides the photo across the table. “Here we are”, she says. Him: Nasim, solar smile and dark glasses. Her: Florence, long brown hair, her head resting on her knees. They are 24 years old and the carefree young couples. They met in Texas three years ago, during Florence’s gap year, now a graduate of Rennes business school.
The sad July afternoon when we meet her, the young woman should be with Nasim for three months already. The visa (J1), thanks to which she was to start a marketing internship in a Texan company, arrived in mid-March. Just as the United States closed its borders to people coming from the Schengen area, while France was confined to fight the pandemic. “It was played out within a few days, laments Florence. No chance. ” Since then, she has been waiting for the restrictions to be lifted at her sister’s house, near Paris. The Texan company has agreed to postpone its internship, but the separation is tough for the young couple. “So far, we’ve been holding up. But for how long ? “
Laurence and Philippe own a French grocery store-bookstore in North Carolina. Laurence was visiting her family in France when the borders closed. She still can’t come back. “One month, two months, three months… We never imagined it would last so long. It is all the more difficult to live because we have no perspective and little information, says Laurence, holder of an E2 visa, for investors. Some days I’m not far from falling apart. Others, I burn with anger. “
Very fluctuating rules
How many are they, like Florence, Nasim, Laurence and Philippe? How many couples, friends, families separated from each other because of travel restrictions in force between many countries, due to the pandemic? Hundreds, maybe thousands in Europe. “It’s difficult to quantify them precisely, but every day I receive testimonies from people in heartbreaking situations, to break the heart”, says German MEP Moritz Körner (Liberal Democrat), very active with the European Commission on the subject. “Many French people that we see are confused, a great confusion reigns on what it is allowed to do or not”, adds Geraldine Tissot Brown, lawyer in the law firm of Laurent C. Vonderweidt in California, and specialist in immigration issues.
You have 78.44% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
