You are currently viewing U.S. Move Reduces Delays For First-Time Visa Applicants In India

U.S. Move Reduces Delays For First-Time Visa Applicants In India

Delays in the U.S. visa application will lessen for Indians due to some moves from the U.S. consulate. In the following months, the U.S. mission in India will create “extra slots” for appointments on select Saturdays making it easy to get a U.S. work visa from U.S. work visa agencies in Hyderabad.

The United States has launched several new initiatives and projects to reduce visa processing times in India. For example, to reduce the wait time for all Indian applicants, the U.S. has planned to increase visa processing capacity across India by conducting special interviews for first-time applicants and increasing consular staff strength in the country.

All American embassies and consulates temporarily stopped offering ordinary visa services in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The process to reinstate routine visa services started in February 2021.

The U.S. has taken new initiatives to shorten visa processing delays in India, including organizing special interviews for first-time applicants and increasing consular employee strength.

Based on the purpose and duration of your visit, the United States of America offers a variety of Visa classes and subclasses. The visa application process in the United States of America is rigorous. The great majority of visa applications to the United States are for non-immigrant visas, which allow Indians to visit and stay in the country for a limited time. When it comes to filing for an Immigrant Visa, which allows foreigners to live permanently in the United States, the government only issues a limited number of Visas.

The U.S. embassy in Delhi and consulates in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and Hyderabad hosted “special Saturday interview days” on January 21 as part of a multi-pronged effort to alleviate the visa backlog.

The ministry will continue to open “additional slots” for appointments on select Saturdays in the coming months.

“These additional interview days are simply one component of a multi-pronged approach to address the COVID-19 visa backlog,” the statement is mentioned.

According to the report, the U.S. State Department has begun remote processing of interview waiver cases for applicants with previous U.S. visas.

It stated that dozens of temporary consular employees from Washington and other embassies would arrive in India between January and March 2023 to improve visa processing capacity.

The appointment wait time for Indians seeking a visiting or tourist visa for the United States is lengthy, reaching more than 900 days in November. A month later, the White House stated that it was working to resolve the lengthy visa wait times in India and other nations.

The over-900-day delay was for Indians who wanted to enter the United States on a B1 (Business) or B2 (Tourist) visa. According to the U.S. State Department website, those seeking a visa appointment at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, or Chennai will have to wait 999 days. According to the U.S., the delay was caused by a backlog induced by the Covid-19 epidemic.

The Consulate General in Mumbai, according to the mission, also extended its weekday operating hours to accommodate additional appointments. More than 2,50,000 more B1/B2 posts became available as a result of the U.S. mission in India. B-1 is a business visa and B-2 is a tourist visa.

“By this summer, we hope to have fully staffed the U.S. mission in India, and we hope to be processing visas at levels comparable to those prior to the COVID-19 outbreak,” the embassy noted. All these will make getting a U.S. tourist visa easy from U.S. tourist visa agencies in Hyderabad.

According to the statement, after travel restrictions were abolished, the mission to India has made it a priority to enable genuine travel, adjudicating over 8,00,000 nonimmigrant visas in 2022, including a recorded number of student and employment visas.

“Interview wait times in India are at or below pre-pandemic levels in every other visa category,” it stated like that.

According to the embassy, the Consulate General of Mumbai now adjudicates the most visa applications in India and is one of the largest visa operations in the world.

“Our consulate personnel across India are working long hours to meet the needful of cut wait times and international visitors,” Mumbai Consular Chief John Ballard said. “This is part of the mission-wide effort to find innovative solutions”, the person said.