Days after Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar raised the issue of long visa wait times with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week, the US embassy in Delhi outlined steps being taken to address the issue.
According to Don Heflin, Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs at the US Embassy, the US embassy and consulates in India will begin student visa interviews in mid-November.
While staffing at consulates in India is expected to return to pre-Covid levels in less than a year, Heflin says that steps like hiring temporary workers and allowing more drop boxes (where no appointment is required for those who already had a US visa that lapsed within a certain time frame) will help cut the waiting period in the meantime.
1 Lakh Appointments Slots
Not only that, but the US Embassy will also open 100,000 slots in the coming weeks for H and L worker visa applicants, particularly drop box cases.
The new slots would be, particularly for first-time applicants.
“There are people in the United States on an H or L visa who haven’t been able to come back home to visit families since Covid started, we sympathise with them,” Heflin said.
Measures to Cut Visa Wait Times
The embassy also announced it would take special measures over the following few months to reduce wait times for B1/B2 visas, which are used by tourists and businesspeople. The current wait time for these visas is more than 800 days.
The embassy will be holding student interviews beginning in mid-November and running through the end of December. Mid-October will see the opening of the first half of the appointment slots, and mid-November for the remaining half.
The slots are for M and F visas. It was announced that there will be a priority line for J visas.
In response to the backlog, Heflin stated, “We will be able to go back to 100% staffing by this time next year,” adding that by 2023, the embassies and consulates would be able to process more visas than ever.
“… Good news is our recovery from Covid and post-Covid staffing problems is well underway. At the height of Covid, and for a while after we only had about 50% of the (visa staffing) we should have. Now, we’re at about 70%. We’re going to be at about 100% staffing a little bit before this time next year… at that point (we’ll) be able to handle about 100% of the volume of (applications) we got before Covid,” said Don Heflin
“Washington is sending us out temporary (staff). We’re also going to get temporary (staff) from other big embassies. So, we should come to a point sometime between now and next summer where we’re able to handle somewhat more cases,” he further added.
Visa Wait Times in India
According to the US Department of State website, the visa appointment wait time for a visitor visa in Mumbai and Delhi is now 848 and 833 days, respectively, whereas it is only two days in Beijing and 18 days in Guangzhou.
“We’re going to work on reducing that in the next few months as well,” he said, admitting that one of the longest wait times is for B1 (business) and B2 (visitor) first-time applicants. “There will still be wait times, but we’re going to keep recovering.”
Indians working on H1 visas in the US have also been unable to return home because their passports must be stamped before they can leave.
“Our immigrant visa operation in Mumbai is steadily cutting into the backlog. Mumbai was one of the most called-up big immigrant visa posts in the world before Covid hit. And we expect within the next year that they’ll be back to pre-Covid waiting times,” he said.
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