US is trying its best to eliminate visa wait times in India, says official

PTI

Washington, January 18

The US is “putting every ounce of its energy” to eliminate the long visa wait time in India, including sending a cadre of consular officers to India and opening up its other overseas embassies in as far away as Germany and Thailand for Indian visa applicants, a senior US visa officer has said.

“We're putting every ounce of our energy towards eliminating these (visa) wait times in India,” Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services, Julie Stufft, told PTI in an interview.

Normalisation of visa operations around the world right now is a top priority, she said.

“We’re sending a cadre of consular officers to help our staff in our embassy and consulates in India. They're working shifts during the day. They're working weekends, mainly to do visitor visa interviews, which of course are now the only remaining visa type that we have long wait times for,” she said.

The US has one of the largest visa operations in the world. “We have many, many different visa types that we need to serve in India.” Prominent among them are visas for students, tech workers, immigrants who are moving permanently to the US, and seafaring crew members.

The US has worked through all of these with the exception of the biggest category – visa for visitors who need an interview.

Stufft said in working through those visa types this year, the US has made a lot of progress. The wait time for an interview for work visas – such as H-1B and L1 visas -- has gone down from 18 months to about 60 days.

India broke the record for most student visas last year and it may do so this year again, she said, adding that India is now number two in the world in terms of international students coming to the United States.

“We are really, we're putting all of our effort now focusing on this visa for visitors and those, in particular, if you don't need an interview, you don't need to wait very long at all for a visa renewal. And that's also one part of our strategy as well,” she said.