Not a question, just wanted to share our experience traveling from Europe to the US via Turkey.
For some context, I have been living and working in the US since mid 2019 on an L1 visa. I got married earlier this year and my wife received an L2 visa with an NIE annotated on it sometime in August.
I went to Europe to help her pack and we then traveled to Turkey and spent the next two weeks there. On the 14th day since our entry, we left Turkey on a direct flight to San Francisco.
Turkish airlines currently has 8 layers of document checks and APIS verification before they OK you to board any US bound flight. Our travel history, our visa history, and whether I (the principal visa holder) am subject to the various travel bans are all checked.
Once they let you board though, we were told to not expect any issues in the US since the APIS check passed (not sure this is fully true).
Once we reached the US, the process was so smooth I almost forgot a pandemic existed. The officer was very cool and wanted to know how long it’s been since we left Europe and went through the stamps on the passport to confirm that.
He stamped my passport right away but referred my wife for additional screening “since it was her first entry on L2”. We were sent to a back office where another officer took a look at her passport and visa and then my passport and eventually stamped her in without questions.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/j05ro1/successfully_reentered_via_turkey_l1_since_2019/