Improvement in Visa Appointment Wait Times Anticipated at U.S. Consular Posts in India

On September 29th, the U.S. Mission in India webcasted a conversation with its Minister Counselor of Consular Affairs, Mr. Don Heflin. The Minister Counselor of Consular Affairs is responsible for consular operations across all five posts in India and in this conversation he provided critical updates on visa application processing. Mr. Heflin remarked upon the incredibly busy year which includes issuance of a record-breaking 82,000 student visas (more student visas than any other country), numerous requests for expedited visa appointments totaling several hundred per week and a backlog for visa appointment services stretching to 2024. Importantly, Mr. Heflin outlined specific strategies to relieve visa appointment demand in H-1/L-1, F-1 and J-1 categories:

H-1/L-1 Workers

The U.S. Mission in India announced that starting within the next few weeks, it plans to open up more than 100,000 drop-box visa appointments for H-1 and L-1 visa categories, for the calendar year 2023. Mr. Heflin also announced in-person, first-time H-1B visa appointments would be released over the next few weeks. Guidance from the diplomatic mission is to check for visa appointment availability every 2-3 hours, every 2-3 days, but no more than this or else the applicant’s account will be automatically locked out.

Mr. Heflin is aware of third-party agents being hired to procure visa appointments on behalf of H-1/L-1 foreign workers for large sums of money. To combat this unfair practice, the diplomatic mission is updating their software to disadvantage these agents and will release large numbers of visa appointments at one time.

F-1 Students

F-1 students will be prioritized for interviews from mid-late November and at the end of December. Visa appointment slots for F-1 students are released in two allocations; the first allocation will open up in mid-October and the second allocation will open up mid-November.

J-1 Exchange Visitors

To accommodate for off-cycle start dates, J-1 exchange visitor visa appointments will be decoupled from F-1 visa appointments. Visa appointments for J-1 exchange visitors will be released in a small numbers every week.

B-1/B-2 Visitors

Without providing specific details about remediation efforts, Mr. Heflin promised the diplomatic mission was working to address the long delays with B-1/B-2 visa appointments. He also spoke about expedite requests and emphasized that granting of expedites relies upon exigent factors, such as attending the funeral of an immediate family member, serious illness/hospitalization of an immediate family member, or critical business travel for high-ranking executives attending high-level meetings.

How we got here

At the height of the pandemic, the U.S. Mission in India was only operating at 50% staffing of pre-pandemic levels. Currently the diplomatic mission is operating at 70% and projects 100% staffing will be achieved by October 2023. When it is fully operational next year, the diplomatic mission expects to handle its caseload with more efficiency, given measures it has undertaken to expanded visa interview waiver criteria and improve processing.

Mr. Heflin announced that following a meeting between Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the State Department took action to provide more staffing in India by sending temporary Vice Consuls from other large posts and permitting drop box visa applications to be reviewed electronically.

What this Means for our Clients

Improvements in staffing, software, expansion of interview waiver criteria and remote review of drop-box applications are necessary steps toward eliminating long backlogs for in-person and drop-box visa appointments in India. The U.S. Mission in India predicts that one year from now, it will be current with visa appointments (i.e. no backlog), but until that time clients should prepare for delays in visa appointments and processing.