U.S. govt aware of long delays in visa appointments in India: WH
The Hindu
In India, the wait time has now crossed more than 1,000 days resulting in hardship to AAPI families inside the U.S. and abroad, as well as major disruptions for students, businesses, and visitors.
The Biden Administration is aware of the long delays in visa appointments in India and is working to respond to the "significant demand of these visa services", the White House said Thursday.
“I can say that the Biden administration is aware of the issues,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at her daily news conference.
She was responding to a question on the agonising long visa appointment period at the U.S. missions in India, which currently runs into more than 1,000 days.
“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 are still working to respond to the significant demand of these visa services,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said.
“That is something that we will continue to do. We are successfully lowering visa interview wait times, that's around the world, and we've doubled our hiring of U.S. Foreign Service personnel to do this important work. Visa processing is recovering faster than projected, and this year we expect to reach pre-pandemic processing levels,” she said.
Early this week, a presidential commission recommended President Joe Biden to consider issuing a memo to the State Department to reduce the visa appointment wait times to a maximum of two to four weeks for countries like India with significant backlogs.
Non-immigrant visa, visitor visa (B1/B2), student visa (F1/F2), and temporary worker visa (H, L, O, P, Q) appointments with embassies in specific Asian countries and Pacific Islands, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal, and other countries, have extraordinarily long backlogs.