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Leah Howd fears that his 5-month-old son, Johan, will not forget his father when they are still reunited.
“It’s too small for the user on the PC screen to be their father,” she says.
Howd, 39, from Peoria, Illinois, hasn’t noticed his partner, Bas Bruurs, 41, from the Netherlands for 3 months: they are among thousands of couples now separated from other parts of the world through COVID-19 restrictions.
The United States has banned maximum foreign travelers from Europe since March, while the European Union banned Americans from visiting its 27 member states on July 1.
NBC News’ Social Newsgathering team spoke to Americans desperate to be reunited with their partners who are using social media hashtags such as #LoveIsEssential and #LoveIsNotTourism to spotlight their stories.
Howd and Bruurs, who met the online video game Guild Wars 2 in 2015, have been dating since 2017 and had their first child in February.
“We were really excited and satisfied when I got a pregnancy,” Howd said. “We spent the maximum pregnancy separately. I was in the United States and he was in the Netherlands, however, we had planned to move to the Netherlands.”
Before the pandemic, the couple filled out the papers for Howd’s visa. But as she was going to give birth two weeks after the face-to-face assembly scheduled with the Dutch immigration office, the couple will postpone the assembly.
Bruurs was able to go to Illinois for the birth, but returned to the Netherlands in mid-April after his tourist visa expired. You haven’t noticed your spouse or child since.
“Bas and I were used to being apart,” Howd said. “We never intended to part with a son. I’m told how hard it is for single mothers because I don’t have a spouse to help me.”
Howd lives with her mother, who helped care for Johan while she works full-time at home for a college library.
Bruurs said: “When I left him, he slept or dined mainly. Now he has smiles and a personality. I hope she doesn’t cry because I’m a stranger now.”
Separation stories have attracted the attention of government officials, adding U.S. Internal Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson, who encouraged U.S. member states. To broaden your definition of the couple to come with those who are not married.
“The spouse or ‘lover’ with whom the EU citizen or legal resident has a duly certified long-term relationship deserves to be exempt from EU restrictions on the non-essential matrix,” Johansson wrote on Twitter on 2 July.
Answering a question on the #LoveIsNotTourism issue ahead of the #JHA @EUCouncil this morning.#LoveIsEssential@EUCouncilPress @EUHomeAffairs pic.twitter.com/ZyZph409MK
– Ylva Johansson (@YlvaJohansson) 7 July 2020
Denmark has allowed “sweetheart” reunions, letting foreign partners, children and parents into the country after they sign sworn statements and provide proof that they have tested negative for COVID-19.
Hilary Kost, 50, who lives in the Florida Keys, met her partner, Holger Merz, 53, from Tieringen, Germany, in 1977. Kost, whose mother is German, said she spends every summer and Christmas in Germany to make a stop. his family.
After years of meeting others in the small German village, the two have forged a romantic relationship.
“He’s my first boyfriend. I’m his first girlfriend,” Kost said. “I never stopped thinking he was my first love.”
However, as she got older, Kost said she was spending less and less time in Germany and that the two were separating. They eventually married other people and lost contact.
Kost said that after her divorce, she saw Merz on Facebook. They have reconnected and have been combined ever since.
The pair last in combination in Florida in May. Kost said leaving Merz at the airport was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.
“It was the hardest goodbye I’ve ever had with him, because I literally thought, ‘Is this the last time I see him?'” Kost said, adding that he was worried about Merz’s flight to the pandemic because he suffers from asthma and type 1 diabetes.
“It was unbearably painful,” Kost said. “After locating it two years and a part ago, being separated since we were young and thinking about each other all those years and, despite everything, being able to connect through social media. through the war of the years.”
A German member of the European Parliament, Moritz Koerner, and other politicians sent a letter this month to the country’s internal minister expressing permission for single couples to meet in Germany.
“Corona won’t have to restrict love,” Koerner wrote on Twitter on July 8. “With @KonstantinKuhle, I ask the Minister of the Interior, Horst #Seehofer, to make exemptions for dual couples. #LoveIsNotTourism #LoveIsEssential #DoItLikeDenmark.”
Corona must not restrict love. With @KonstantinKuhle, I ask the Minister of the Interior, Horst #Seehofer, to make exemptions for dual couples. #LoveIsNotTourism #LoveIsEssential #DoItLikeDenmark pic.twitter.com/f2DqFFO8kV
– Moritz Korner (@moritzkoerner) 8 July 2020
Alexandra Boles, 23, of Tempe, Arizona, last saw her fiancé, Nicolas Caron, 23, from Toulouse, France, on 3 January when she visited her and her circle of family members for Christmas. The couple, who met while leying at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, planned to meet in April, but the pandemic hit.
The couple, who have been engaged for nearly a year, apply for a K-1 visa, colloquially known as a fiance visa, so that Caron can enroll in it in the United States. The first component of his application was approved on March 17, but has since been discontinued because K-1 visas are not considered “mission essential,” Boles said.
“I haven’t noticed it in six months, so I spent part of my engagement alone,” she said.
The State Department suspended the regime visa at all U.S. embassies and consulates. On 20 March due to the pandemic, with the exception of critical personnel such as air and sea team members and physical care professionals.
@mabaldwin Hello, Mary: Starting July 15, U.S. embassies and consulates can begin the slow resumption of the regime visa under local conditions. Check the Embassy/Consulate’s online page to learn about the prestige of your parent.
– Travel – State Department (@TravelGov) July 11, 2020
Boles said they were hoping to move to Maryland, where they are expected to start their law school at the University of Maryland in the fall. Caron intended to help move around the country, but now she’d probably have to do it alone.
“I feel like my wait is on hold,” she says. “We look forward to getting married in 2020. I doubt that’ll happen. I already have the white dress.”
Boles is involved in the duration of pandemic restrictions and wonders what this means for his relationship with Caron.
My happiness is in the other aspect of the ocean. Am I a second-class American now? Investigate why @USEmbassyFrance that K1 visa processing is not essential. My center hurts on the Fourth of July ???Rewell ????? #LiftTheTravelBan #LoveIsNotTourism
– alexandra bowls (@alexetra) 4 July 2020
“As a user who has a foreign boyfriend, Array … we are not asking for the lifting of the tourism ban,” Boles said in tears. “We are not asking for the opening of borders. We are not asking management to only open the EU, as by chance. We ask that we be allowed to see our foreign partners in our own country.