Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg was grilled on Thursday by a British journalist who demanded to know why travel restrictions 'with no scientific rationale' were being enforced, and said it had forced him two days ago to attend his father's funeral via Zoom.
Jonathan Ferro, co-anchor of Bloomberg Surveillance on Bloomberg Television, took Buttigieg to task over the policy, which he said was illogical.
At present U.S. citizens or green card holders can travel freely into the UK, and return directly.
Holders of H1B or L1 visas, however - highly-educated professionals in the case of H1B visas, and executives who are transferred through their multinational companies on L1 visas - cannot fly directly from the U.K. to the U.S.
They must quarantine for two weeks in a third country, frequently Mexico.
'I have spoken to scientists about this, and there is no scientific rational for that policy,' said Ferro.
Jonathan Ferro (left) spoke to Pete Buttigieg, the Transport Secretary, on Thursday morning for Bloomberg Television. Ferro asked Buttigieg to reconsider his transport restrictions
'Why are you not changing the policy when we have scientists day after day say there is no scientific rationale for maintaining it?'
Buttigieg, who ran for the Democratic nomination before supporting Biden, tried to argue that it was 'complex', and said they needed to be cautious.
Americans can currently travel freely to Europe and back, but Europeans cannot enter the U.S. unless they have a green card.
'As transportation secretary, I am as impatient as anybody to see us move as quickly as we responsibly can toward more forms of reopening,' Buttigieg said.
'Right now what is going on is a set of working group processes.
'So we have convened working groups with our international partners - one for the UK, one for the EU, one for Canada, one for Mexico - to determine the right pathway forwards.
'A lot of this is based on what is going on with progress on the vaccines.
'Obviously we see good
