US chalks out steps to expedite visa process

Reducing wait time for American visas in India is the highest priority for the US from the secretary of state Antony Blinken’s desk down to the bureau of consular affairs to the mission and consulates in India, two officials said on Tuesday.

Reducing wait time for American visas in India is the highest priority for the US from the secretary of state Antony Blinken’s desk down to the bureau of consular affairs to the mission and consulates in India, two officials said on Tuesday. They also outlined the “unprecedented” steps that have been taken to expedite the visa process, claimed that the US will be issuing more visas to Indians than it did before the pandemic, recognising that delays in the process had eroded public goodwill in India.

In 2022, 125,000 Indian students had been issued visas — the highest tally ever. (HT photo)

Briefing reporters and Indian diaspora community representatives at the state department, Nancy Izzy Jackson, the deputy assistant secretary for the South and Central Asia bureau, said that people to people ties constituted the bedrock of the India-US relationship.

“Addressing visa wait time is critical not just to maintain these ties but expand them….We are keenly aware of the public perception that this has created and generated and the misperception that US is not welcoming of Indian visitors, students and businessmen. But this is a systemic problem, a global problem. India’s situation is worse. It is a top priority from the secretary downwards and the US wants to see more visitors,” said Jackson.

Julie Stufft, the deputy assistant secretary at the bureau of consular affairs, acknowledged that the visa interview wait time, as of Tuesday, was 580 days.

“Every morning, when I get up, I check the wait time…it shocks me that it is 580 days. But in December, it was 1000 days. So we have made progress but the wait time is too high. We are absolutely committed to getting out of this situation,” Stufft said.

Stufft said visa operations in India were both unique and inherently difficult because of the scale of demand, and the range of visa types on which Indians sought to come to the US, adding that the shutting down of visa operations because of the pandemic had contribued to the problem, forcing a short staffed and underresourced consular department to handle all the pent up demand.

She said that for visitors who had travelled to US before, wait times had reduced as it had for those in H1 and F — work and student — categories. 36% more visas have been issued this year already than in the same period before the pandemic. In 2022, 125,000 Indian students had been issued visas — the highest tally ever. But Stufft acknowledged that the US had to now deal with the B1 and B2 visitor visa categories.

Stufft then outlined the various steps being taken to expedite visa times.

“We have waived interviews for repeat travellers..this has also allowed officers elsewhere in missions in the world to process India visas, so someone in our embassy in China could be doing India visas so that the Indian mission can focus on those who have to go through interviews.”

The US has also opened up other missions to take on India visa applications, an unprecedented step, with the embassy in Bangkok emerging as the big destination to process visas.

“This is not an ideal situation. But Indians have applied in over 100 embassies overseas for visas and people are taking advantage of this,” Stufft said.

The US has also added staff in the embassy and consulates in India.

“We recognised that full staffing alone won’t fix this and dozens of additional staff have been deployed who are working shifts during the week and working weekends and we are prepared to staff up positions to bring wait times down.”’

The US has also decided to allow domestic in country renewal of visas from this fall, which means that those whose non-immigrant visas are expiring don’t have to return to India to renew their visas and can do so in the US itself.

Both officials said all these steps will dramatically reduce wait times, and reiterated that the US will issue more visas to Indian visitors than it did before the pandemic. The visa delays have emerged as a top policy priority with diaspora groups such as the Foundation for Indian and Indian Diaspora Studies, whose representatives were at the briefing, lobbying their elected representatives and state department. During his visit to Washington last year, external affairs minister S Jaishankar raised the issue with Blinken, who promised to address it.