While the article focuses on Mercedes-Benz, as a Volvo owner, I was immediately concerned about what will happen when my lease is up.

Buried at the bottom of the article are these three paragraphs:

Volvo, which is majority-owned by Shufu’s Geely, said on Tuesday that it received specific authorization from the U.S. government to bypass federal bans restricting connected vehicle software and hardware linked to China.

Volvo confirmed its special authorization but did not immediately respond to questions about the other bills and their potential impact on the company.

Volvo Cars sold 121,600 vehicles in the U.S. last year. Mercedes-Benz sold 303,200 passenger cars and 12,400 vans in the country during the same period.

The article is not clear about what specific visas are affected, so I’m not sure what’s changing.

To give two examples, my sister and I are both Canadians living in the US.

My sister met a guy online twenty years ago, did some cross-border trips to visit each other for a year, then he proposed while she was visiting him one time. Since she was now planning to move to the US, she could not move towards getting a green card from a tourist visa. So, she and her new husband traveled to Canada and reentered the US, declaring her intent to become a permanent resident (and probably had a bunch of paperwork, including their marriage certificate). I believe she was allowed to stay in the US while the green card process played out. Maybe this is the part that’s changing?

In my case, I was working for a US company abroad, and transferred to headquarters on an L1 visa (highly skilled internal worker). About six months after moving, the company’s immigration lawyers kicked off the process to get me a green card and I received it a little shy of two years after moving. Changing this process would mess things up, since (by definition) I was in the US for my job and would have had a hard time leaving the country for over a year while the green card process played out.

The distinction is the “intent” of a given type of visa. The tourist visa specifically implies “I’m here to visit, then get the hell out”. The L1 visa (as well as the TN, the H1-B, and a few others) is specifically designated as a “dual intent” visa, meaning “I might plan to stay permanently”. If they’re changing the rules for dual intent visas, that’s messed up. If they’re not, I’m not sure what exactly is changing.