US govt aware of long delays in visa appointments in India: White House
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The White House stated on Thursday that the Biden Government is working to meet the “significant demand for these visa services” and is aware of the long delays in visa appointments in India.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said to reporters, “I can say that the Biden government is aware of the issues,” in response to a question about the over 1,000-day visa appointment process at US missions in India.
The US Embassy previously stated that since March 2020, the wait time for non-immigrant visa applicants has increased due to reduced workforce and coronavirus-related restrictions in operations.
“We are still working to respond to the significant demand for these visa services,” Jean-Pierre stated. “While we have made great strides, as you know, because you cover this very closely, in recovering from the pandemic-related closures and staffing challenges.
“We will continue to do that in the future. We have doubled our hiring of US Foreign Service personnel to perform this crucial task, and we are successfully reducing visa interview wait times worldwide. She stated, “We expect to reach pre-pandemic processing levels this year because visa processing is recovering faster than expected.”
US govt aware of long delays in visa appointments in India
At the beginning of this week, a presidential commission suggested that President Joe Biden thinks about sending a memo to the State Department to limit the amount of time it takes to get a visa appointment to two to four weeks for countries like India that have a lot of backlogs.
The wait times for appointments with Indian embassies for non-immigrant visas, visitor visas (B1/B2), student visas (F1/F2), and temporary worker visas (H, L, O, P, and Q) are extremely long.
It has now crossed more than 1,000 days, causing significant disruptions for students, businesses, and visitors as well as difficulties for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) families both in the United States and abroad.
Suggested that the State Department take all necessary measures to expedite visa processing at foreign embassies and shorten visa appointment wait times for India and other affected embassies to no more than two to four weeks.
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It was suggested that to reduce high backlogs, the State Department should allow for virtual interviews wherever they are necessary and allow staff from US consular offices and embassies around the world to help in conducting virtual interviews.
The Commission also recommended that the State Department hire new full-time officers, contractors, and temporary staff, or bring back retired consular officers, to clear the backlog at relevant embassies in Asia that have wait times of over a month. Priority should be given to embassies with wait times of more than 300 days, and the wait time should be reduced to two to four weeks by clearing the backlog of visa appointments.
