Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 177 / Thursday, September 16, 2021 / Proposed Rules 51643 

1E.O. 14012, 86 FR 8277 (February 5, 2021). 

2Proclamation No. 10014, 85 FR 23441 (April 27, 

2020). 

Authority: 15 U.S.C. 1471—76. Secs. 

1700.1 and 1700.14 also issued under 15 

U.S.C. 2079(a). 

■ 2. Section 1700.14 is amended by 

adding paragraph (a)(10)(xxiv) to read as 

follows: 

§ 1700.14 Substances requiring special 

packaging. 

(a) * * * 

(10) * * * 

(xxiv) Baloxavir marboxil tablets in 

packages containing not more than 80 

mg of the drug. 

* * * * * 

Alberta E. Mills, 

Secretary, U.S. Consumer Product Safety 

Commission. 

[FR Doc. 2021–19953 Filed 9–15–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6355–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

22 CFR Parts 40, 41, and 42 

[Public Notice: 11459] 

RIN 1400–AF30 

Visas: Immigrant Visas 

AGENCY: Department of State. 

ACTION: Request for public input. 

SUMMARY: The Department of State 

(‘‘Department’’) seeks public comments 

identifying barriers that impede access 

to, and fair, efficient adjudication of, 

immigration benefits, and 

recommendations on how to remove 

those barriers, and identifying any 

Department actions that fail to promote 

access to the legal immigration system. 

DATES: Written comments must be 

received on or before October 18, 2021. 

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, 

identified by RIN 1400–AF30, by either 

of the following methods: 

• Internet (preferred): At 

www.regulations.gov, you can search for 

the document using Docket Number 

DOS–2021–0017 or using the notice RIN 

1400–AF30. 

• Email: Claire Kelly, Office of Visa 

Services, Bureau of Consular Affairs, 

U.S. Department of State, VisaRegs@

state.gov. Please include the RIN or 

Docket Number in the Subject Line. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Claire Kelly, Office of Visa Services, 

Bureau of Consular Affairs, Department 

of State, 600 19th St. NW, Washington, 

DC 20006, (202) 485–7586. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Public Participation 

All interested parties are invited to 

respond to this Request for Public Input 

by submitting written views and 

comments on all aspects of the 

Department of State’s implementation 

and execution of its authorities relating 

to the immigrant visa function, 

including existing regulations, orders, 

guidance documents, policies, and any 

other similar agency actions. Comments 

must be submitted in English or 

commenters must submit an English 

translation. Comments that will provide 

the most assistance to the Department in 

considering recommendations will 

reference a specific existing regulation, 

order, guidance, policy, or any other 

similar agency action, explain the 

reason for any recommended change, 

and include information that supports 

the recommended change. 

II. Background 

Executive Order (E.O.) 14012 

describes a policy of the Administration 

to restore faith in our legal immigration 

system and to strengthen integration 

and inclusion efforts for new 

Americans. As a first step to advance 

this policy, section 3 of the E.O. tasked 

the Secretary of State, the Attorney 

General, and the Secretary of Homeland 

Security with identifying: 

• Barriers that impede access to 

immigration benefits and fair, efficient 

adjudications of these benefits and make 

recommendations on how to remove these 

barriers, as appropriate and consistent with 

applicable law; and 

• any agency actions that fail to promote 

access to the legal immigration system . . . 

and recommend steps, as appropriate and 

consistent with applicable law, to revise or 

rescind those agency actions.1

The Department of State’s role in 

facilitating access to the U.S. 

immigration system includes the 

issuance of immigrant visas to eligible 

individuals outside of the United States. 

The Department welcomes comments 

on: (1) Any existing barriers that impede 

access to, and fair, efficient adjudication 

of, immigrant visas, and (2) 

recommendations on actions the 

Department could take to improve 

access to adjudication of immigrant 

visas; however the Department is not 

soliciting comments on administrative 

processing or communication 

surrounding administrative processing 

as the Department at this time is unable 

to alter or improve communication 

surrounding administrative processing. 

Additionally, as the Department is 

already undertaking efforts to address 

the Immigrant Visa (including Diversity 

Visa) backlog caused by Presidential 

Proclamation 10014 2 and the global 

pandemic’s effect on visa operations, 

comments on this area are less useful 

than comments on perceived systemic 

barriers pre-pandemic. This Request for 

Public Input is not soliciting comments 

on areas outside the Department’s 

responsibility, including the functions, 

roles and responsibilities vested in the 

Department of Homeland Security, the 

Department of Labor, or Department of 

Justice, though the Department is 

interested in learning whether there are 

areas of overlap between any of the 

policies of these agencies and the 

Department of State that create such 

barriers, inefficiencies, or that impede 

access to, fair and efficient adjudication 

of immigrant visas. The Department is 

not obligated to respond in any way to 

comments received in response to this 

Request for Public Input; however, the 

Department intends to consider all 

comments in developing the report to 

the President required under section 

3(c) of E.O. 14012, describing its 

progress towards implementing a plan 

to advance the policy set forth in section 

1 of E.O. 14012. This Request for Public 

Input does not create any right for 

members of the public who submit 

comments or any obligations for the 

Department of State. 

III. Request for Input 

A. Maximizing the Value of Public 

Feedback 

This notice contains a list of 

questions, the answers to which may 

assist the Department in identifying 

aspects of immigrant visa-related 

processes that may benefit from the 

Department’s review with the goals of 

eliminating any undue burdens on the 

public, saving costs for both the public 

and the Department, increasing 

navigability, saving time, reducing 

perceived confusion, promoting 

simplification, improving efficiency, 

and/or removing barriers that 

unnecessarily impede access to 

immigrant visas. The Department 

encourages public comment on these 

questions and seeks any other 

information or data commenters believe 

are relevant to this notice. The type of 

feedback that is most useful to the 

Department will identify specific 

regulations and/or processes and 

include actionable information and/or 

data and/or provide viable alternatives, 

that meet statutory obligations and 

regulatory objectives and requirements. 

Public feedback that simply states that 

a stakeholder feels strongly that the 

51644 Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 177 / Thursday, September 16, 2021 / Proposed Rules 

3https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/usvisas/Visa-Reciprocity-and-Civil-Documents-byCountry.html. 

Department should change its processes 

but does not contain specific 

information on what change should be 

considered or how a proposed change 

will reduce barriers, or otherwise 

improve existing processes, is less 

useful to the Department. 

We highlight a few of those points 

here, noting that the comments that will 

be most useful to the Department are 

those that are guided by the below 

principles. Commenters should consider 

these principles as they answer and 

respond to the questions in this Request 

for Public Input: 

• Commenters should identify, with 

specificity, the regulation, order, 

guidance document, policy, or other 

similar agency action at issue, providing 

the relevant Code of Federal Regulation 

(CFR) citation if the comment 

recommends revising a current 

Department regulation. If a new 

regulation is being suggested addressing 

a subject matter that is not currently 

codified in regulations, it should be 

identified with as much specificity as 

possible and with references to the 

program/process and statutory 

authority. 

• Commenters should provide, in as 

much detail as possible, an explanation 

why a Department regulation, order, 

guidance document, policy, other 

similar agency action should be 

modified, streamlined, expanded, or 

repealed, as well as specific suggestions 

about how the Department can better 

achieve its objectives and reduce 

unnecessary burdens on the public. 

• To the extent feasible, commenters 

are invited to provide specific 

information on the costs, burdens, and 

benefits of existing requirements and/or 

how proposed changes would reduce 

costs and burdens, and/or increase 

benefits to the Department or the public. 

Commenters also are invited to address 

how the Department can address 

procedural obstacles to fair and efficient 

adjudications related to immigrant visas 

attributable to existing regulations, 

orders, guidance documents, policies, 

and any other similar agency actions, 

and whether there are existing sources 

of data that the Department can use to 

identify and evaluate inefficiencies and 

unwarranted barriers to accessing the 

Department’s visa-related services. 

• Comments should emphasize any 

unduly burdensome processes that have 

been in effect for enough time to 

warrant a fair evaluation, in most cases 

for more than one year. 

• Comments that reiterate substantive 

issues already raised in public 

comments submitted on recently issued 

rules will be less useful, unless they 

provide new information—by, for 

example, pointing to new studies or 

data, or offering novel alternatives. 

B. List of Questions for Commenters 

The below non-exhaustive list of 

questions is meant to assist members of 

the public in formulating input, and is 

not intended to restrict the input that 

members of the public may provide: 

(1) Are there any immigrant visa 

related regulations, orders, guidance 

documents, policies, or other similar 

agency actions that you consider to be 

unjustified or excessive barriers that 

impede easy access to immigrant visarelated services and fair, efficient 

adjudication of immigrant visas? For 

any identified barrier, is the perceived 

barrier created by duplication, overlap, 

or inconsistency of requirements? 

(2) Are there any immigrant visa 

regulations, orders, guidance 

documents, policies, or other similar 

agency actions that impose undue 

burdens on applicants that are not 

tailored to achieving the Department’s 

objectives? 

(3) Are there any immigrant visa 

regulations, orders, guidance 

documents, policies, or other similar 

agency actions that disproportionally 

and unreasonably burden 

disadvantaged, vulnerable, or 

marginalized communities? If so, please 

specify the regulations, orders, guidance 

documents, policies, or other similar 

agency actions to include citations of 

any applicable Department regulations, 

providing a description of the specific 

burden and the relevant communities. 

(4) Are there immigrant visa 

regulations, orders, guidance 

documents, policies, or other similar 

agency actions for which 

implementation could be modified to 

reduce unnecessary administrative 

burdens? For example, are there 

regulations, orders, guidance 

documents, policies, or other similar 

agency actions, specifically that could 

be modernized, streamlined, or 

otherwise improved? 

(5) Is there information you believe 

the Department currently collects from 

immigrant visa applicants that it does 

not need or that is not effectively scoped 

to information relevant to the 

adjudication of an immigrant visa 

application? Are there immigrant visa 

regulations, forms or other information 

collections that have been overtaken by 

technological developments? 

(6) Are there new technologies that 

the Department should consider 

leveraging to modify, streamline, or do 

away with existing immigrant visa 

regulatory or form requirements? 

Additionally, the Department is 

interested feedback on the following: 

(1) Communication— 

a. How could the immigrant visa 

application system (Consular Electronic 

Application Center) be improved to 

make the required steps in the 

immigrant visa application process 

clearer? How can the Department better 

communicate information regarding the 

status of active immigrant visa cases, 

what steps the applicant may need to 

take to advance the case, and when the 

case will be scheduled for interview? 

(2) Websites— 

a. If you consulted nvc.state.gov to 

learn about the immigrant visa process, 

what could be improved about it? 

b. If you have used the countryspecific document finder tool 

(reciprocity),3 how could it be 

improved? If you have used postspecific interview instructions found on 

individual post’s websites, what could 

be improved about them? 

c. Are there aspects of visa 

appointment scheduling the Department 

should consider modernizing, 

streamlining, or otherwise improving? 

Detailed suggestions are most helpful. 

Instructions: If you submit a 

comment, you must include the agency 

name, Department of State, and RIN 

1400–AF30 for this request for public 

input in the title or body of the 

comment. Regardless of the method 

used for submitting comments or 

material, all submissions will be posted, 

without change, to the Federal 

eRulemaking Portal at http://

www.regulations.gov, and therefore will 

include any personal information you 

provide. Therefore, because all 

submissions will be public, you may 

wish to consider limiting the amount of 

personal information that you provide. 

The Department of State may withhold 

from public viewing information 

provided in comments that it 

determines may infringe privacy rights 

of an individual or is offensive. For 

additional information, please read the 

Privacy Act notice available in the 

footer at http://www.regulations.gov. 

Zachary A. Parker, 

Director, Office of Directives Management, 

Department of State. 

[FR Doc. 2021–20020 Filed 9–15–21; 8:45 am] 

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