US placing each ounce of vitality to get rid of visa wait occasions in India, says official

A senior US visa officer has stated the US is placing each ounce of its vitality to get rid of the lengthy visa wait time in India.

By Press Trust of India: The US is “putting every ounce of its energy” to get rid of the lengthy visa wait time in India, together with sending a cadre of consular officers to India and opening up its different abroad embassies as far-off as Germany and Thailand for Indian visa candidates, a senior US visa officer has stated.

“We’re putting every ounce of our energy toward eliminating these (visa) wait times in India,” Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services, Julie Stufft informed PTI in an interview.

Normalisation of visa operations all over the world proper now’s a high precedence, she stated.

“We’re sending a cadre of consular officers to help our staff in our embassy and consulates in India. They’re working in shifts during the day. They’re working weekends, mainly to do visitor visa interviews, which, of course, are now the only remaining visa type that we have long wait times for,” she stated.

The US has one of many largest visa operations on this planet. “We have many, many different visa types that we need to serve in India.” Prominent amongst them are visas for college students, tech employees, immigrants who’re shifting completely to the US, and seafaring crew members.

The US has labored by way of all of those apart from the largest class – visa for guests who want an interview.

Stufft stated in working by way of these visa sorts this 12 months, the US has made a number of progress. The wait time for an interview for work visas – corresponding to H-1B and L1 visas — has gone down from 18 months to about 60 days.

India broke the document for many pupil visas final 12 months and it might accomplish that this 12 months once more, she stated, including that India is now quantity two on this planet when it comes to worldwide college students coming to the United States.

“We are really, we’re putting all of our efforts now focusing on this visa for visitors and those, in particular, if you don’t need an interview, you don’t need to wait very long at all for a visa renewal. And that’s also one part of our strategy as well,” she stated.

On how the pandemic posed an impediment in its visa operations, Stufft stated it was just like the US took its greatest machine on this planet to a screeching halt, stopping it fully. “Now we are running it faster,” she stated.

The State Department is placing a number of stress on the operations to make for what it misplaced throughout that interval, with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken taking a private curiosity in decreasing the visa wait time, she stated.

“It’s just absolutely just massive amounts of demand across the board for visa categories. And it’s our responsibility to meet that demand and to offer those appointments. That’s what we’re doing now,” the State Department official stated.

“We had a point where we had all of these appointments available, but we had a 1,000-plus day wait time for some of them to today, where we have no wait times for all visa categories except one,” he stated.

In one visa class, the wait time continues to be over 400 days, however far lower than it was earlier. It is constant to get higher each day, but “400 days is not acceptable,” Stufft stated.

According to her, dozens and dozens of consular officers who do not work completely in India are being moved to its varied missions in India to assist its workers there, “We are spending a huge amount of manpower to come up through this wait time,” she stated.

Stufft stated their purpose this 12 months is to get to the 120 calendar days wait time for all the visa classes.

“That’s really what we consider to be the baseline acceptable around the world. In India, this is a matter of seeing how much demand there is and how we compress that and make interview appointments available so that that wait time actually comes down,” she stated.

American consulates and embassies in and round India and away in Germany have been giving visa appointments to Indians who’re able to journey overseas. “We are getting better. It’s moving faster and there will be a day when this is all behind us.”

“This is not something that’s for everyone. But we’ve had other embassies around India open up so that applicants can go there if it’s convenient for them to leave India briefly to have that visa application,” she stated.

“In particular our posts in Germany, Thailand and a few others have set aside appointments for Indian applicants, just as if they were from that country,” she stated.

“I understand this is not an option for everyone. But I was just checking our statistics that since October, Indian applicant visa applicants have gone to 192 of our overseas offices to apply for a visa. That is stunning. That’s almost all of our overseas offices overseas.

“So obviously some of those applicants were living in a different region, but it really has been helpful for many applicants to apply elsewhere,” Stufft stated.

“As a result of the recent expansions of interview waivers, more than 30,000 Indian applicants have benefited from this. They did not need an interview to get their visa but in the recent past, they would have needed that interview,” she added.

Published On:

Jan 18, 2023