The Foreign Service Journal, October 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2021 55 A line of dogs at Kuwait International Airport get ready to fly to the United States on July 12 ahead of the CDC ban. Since 2015, the nonprofit group Wings of Love Kuwait has been rescuing abandoned dogs from Kuwait and bringing them to Maryland for adoption. WINGSOFLOVEKUWAIT In most cases, the CDC’s permit program requires a rabies titer test, performed within a year of travel. Initially, the CDC approved only four labs globally for the test. Kateri Clement was working in Liberia for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. foreign aid agency, but left post early with her dogs, Togo and Lawali, to beat the ban. In parts of Africa, commercial shippers do not permit the transport of fresh blood required for the titer test, she says. The only way to get it to the nearest approved lab is to hand-carry it—and pay thousands in travel and lab costs. “This would be an incredible burden for people like me who live in lesser developed countries,” she says. “It is next to impossible for anyone serving in West Africa to comply with the new rules.” After advocacy from AFSA and an outcry from those affected, CDC approved more labs, but not enough to address the limita- tions of many posts. A retired Foreign Service officer doing an assignment in Central Asia brought her labradoodle along, a decision she now regrets. “With this kind of treatment from the government, I cer- tainly will not be interested in filling future staffing gaps,” she says. Confusion at the Airlines The CDC initially said all dogs with a permit had to arrive through only one port of entry: JFK Airport in New York. The Fly America Act, combined with limited flight options during the pandemic, left many without a route into JFK. The CDC has since added a few additional ports of entry. Notably, Dulles Airport in Washington is not on the list. Some airlines, such as Ameri- can, announced that they would stop flying pets to the U.S. at all—whether or not they were covered by the ban; other global airlines canceled tickets and pet reservations. A family retiring frommilitary service tried to get two cats out of Germany. “The ban applies to dogs and doesn’t apply to Ger- many … but it’s easier for the airlines to apply a blanket ban on all pets headed to the United States,” says the retiring U.S. Army colonel. Instead of shipping the cats economically as accompa- nied baggage, the family had to pivot to more expensive cargo. “What should cost us $300 will now cost us upward of $5,000. Happy retirement to us, I guess.” Making Hard-to-Fill Posts Harder to Fill After a year and a half of COVID-19 stressors, some U.S. government personnel say navigating the CDC ban may be their breaking point. One Foreign Service specialist in a high differ- ential post says she has already curtailed. She won’t be the only one letting the ban influence where she is willing to serve. “Long term, this policy will require that I avoid bidding on positions among the 113 countries covered by this ban,” says