By ZEKE MILLER, As­so­ci­at­ed Press

WASH­ING­TON (AP) — Pres­i­dent Joe Biden will re­quire es­sen­tial, non­res­i­dent trav­el­ers cross­ing U.S. land bor­ders, such as truck dri­vers, gov­ern­ment and emer­gency re­sponse of­fi­cials, to be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed be­gin­ning on Jan. 22, the ad­min­is­tra­tion planned to an­nounce.

A se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cial said the re­quire­ment, which the White House pre­viewed in Oc­to­ber, brings the rules for es­sen­tial trav­el­ers in line with those that took ef­fect ear­li­er this month for leisure trav­el­ers, when the U.S. re­opened its bor­ders to ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed in­di­vid­u­als.

Es­sen­tial trav­el­ers en­ter­ing by fer­ry will al­so be re­quired to be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed by the same date, the of­fi­cial said. The of­fi­cial spoke to The As­so­ci­at­ed Press on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to pre­view the an­nounce­ment.

The rules per­tain to non-U.S. na­tion­als. Amer­i­can cit­i­zens and per­ma­nent res­i­dents may still en­ter the U.S. re­gard­less of their vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus, but face ad­di­tion­al test­ing hur­dles be­cause of­fi­cials be­lieve they more eas­i­ly con­tract and spread COVID-19 and in or­der to en­cour­age them to get a shot.

The Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion pushed back the re­quire­ment for es­sen­tial trav­el­ers by more than two months from when it went in­to ef­fect on Nov. 8 for non-es­sen­tial vis­i­tors to pre­vent dis­rup­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly among truck dri­vers who are vi­tal to North Amer­i­can trade. While most cross-bor­der traf­fic was shut down in the ear­li­est days of the pan­dem­ic, es­sen­tial trav­el­ers have been able to tran­sit unim­ped­ed.

Even with the de­lay, though, Nori­ta Tay­lor, spokes­woman for the truck­ing group Own­er-Op­er­a­tor In­de­pen­dent Dri­vers As­so­ci­a­tion, crit­i­cized the vac­ci­na­tion re­quire­ment, call­ing it an ex­am­ple of “how un­nec­es­sary gov­ern­ment man­dates can force ex­pe­ri­enced own­er-op­er­a­tors and in­de­pen­dent truck­ers out of busi­ness.”

“These re­quire­ments are an­oth­er ex­am­ple of how im­prac­ti­cal reg­u­la­tions will send safe dri­vers off the road,” she said.

The lat­est dead­line is be­yond the point by which the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion hopes to have large busi­ness­es re­quire their em­ploy­ees to be vac­ci­nat­ed or test­ed week­ly un­der an emer­gency reg­u­la­tion is­sued by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty Ad­min­is­tra­tion. That rule is now de­layed by lit­i­ga­tion, but the White House has en­cour­aged busi­ness­es to im­ple­ment their own man­dates re­gard­less of the fed­er­al re­quire­ment with the aim of boost­ing vac­ci­na­tion.

About 47 mil­lion adults in the U.S. re­main un­vac­ci­nat­ed, ac­cord­ing to fig­ures from the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer David Koenig in Dal­las con­tributed to this re­port.