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WASHINGTON, DC, USA, February 27, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — When the US consulates opened up for visa appointments post pandemic in 2022, there were delays ranging from 300 to 900 days based on visa-categories for visa appointments in India. These delays had widespread impacts on relatives of American citizens, business visitors, immigrant tech workers and university students. To address these delays, since August 2022, the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS) has created awareness on this issue, launched a petition, met elected officials and discussed the same with the Department of State, which has been working overdrive on this issue.
During an event organized by Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies on 21st February, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) for Visa Services in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, Julie Stufft said, “India is the number one priority that we are facing right now. We are absolutely committed to getting out of this situation. This year, we have issued 36% more visas than we did before the covid pandemic in India.” During the meeting, she outlined various steps taken, including increasing staff, remote processing of visa paperwork from other locations, hosting ‘Super-Saturdays’ and allowing visa appointments in other places like Bangkok for applicants from India.
“We thank Deputy Assistant Secretary Julie Stufft for leading the bureau of Consular affairs to experiment outside-the-box and genuinely innovative ideas like Super Saturday, remote processing and allowing outside-India appointments. We are happy to see that the appointment delays for H-1B, L1, F1 appointments came down from 300-400 days to around 40-60 days and B1/B2 appointments from 900 days to 600 days. We hope that the delays in B1/B2 also are eliminated by the end of 2023”, said Khanderao Kand, President and Policy Director of FIIDS.
The Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of South and Central Asia, Nancy Jackson, emphasized the priority and importance given to addressing the issue. The DAS Nancy Jackson said, “As I look at the (US-India) relationship it strikes me that people-to-people ties between our two nations are really the bedrock of what is one of the most consequential relationships in the world and that is the India-US relationship. And we can’t underscore that enough and so addressing the visa wait time that we were facing is critical; not only to maintain these people-to-people ties, but also to expand in that space. So, because of that, this issue remains a top priority.”
“We thank DAS Nancy Jackson as we are able to see the results of the given importance and focus in progress not only on this issue but also on the openness to engage with the Indian American community on various matters related to US-India relations.”, said Narsimha Koppula, an advisor of FIIDS.
After covid related restrictions on the US consular services were lifted in mid- 2022, there was an upsurge in visa both pending and new applications causing unprecedented delays in the visa appointment in India. The visa appointment delays were from 300-900+ days based on type of visa.
Hence, since August 2022, the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS) has been working on Visa related issues. During the first few months, we spread awareness about this issue both within the Indian American community as well as their elected representatives .
However, as the visa appointment delays continue to grow, FIIDS requested India’s external affairs minister (EAM) Hon. Dr. S. Jaishankar on 25th Sep. 2022 in Washington DC to raise our concerns to the US officials in his planned meetings during the visit.
http://www.fiids-usa.org/fiids-raised-indoamericans-issues-to-eam-dr-s-jaishankar/
We thank Dr. Jaishankar for discussing this issue with the Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who on 27th of Sept 2022 elaborated causes behind the delays and promised to address the concerns.
However, as there was not much progress on reducing the visa appointment delays happened even after a month from the Secretary of State’s comment, FIIDS launched Change.org campaign to create awareness.
http://www.fiids-usa.org/eliminate-wait-time/
Change.org campaign
On 9th November, as a part of FIIDS and American Jewish Community (AJC) delegation, we discussed the same with the US Embassy officials in New Delhi. We also FIIDS highlighted immigration issues among the top issues of concern of Indian American voters in Nov 2022 elections.
We also high-lighted the immigration issues among top issues of concerns of Indian American voters in Nov 2022 elections.
http://www.fiids-usa.org/us2022-issues/
This campaign created a big buzz as many Indian media as well as TV channels covered it. It was noticed by the concerned authorities. On Nov 5th, FIIDS directed communicated our concerns to Deputy Assistance Secretary Nancy Isso Jackson.
FIIDS Director Khanderao Kand and advisor Narsimha Koppula subsequently met the US’s Charge D’affair Mr Heath in the US Embassy in New Delhi on 9th of Nov as a part of a joint delegation of American Jewish Committee (AJC) and FIIDS to India. We had a detailed discussions in which we raised the concerns of Indian Americans about the impact of this delays on their life. During the discussions, Mr. Heath acknowledged the Change.org petition and mentioned that they are working on hiring and training to increase the rate of visa application processing in the US to reduce the backlog by the summer 2023. A press coverage next day also covered the same information.
On our return from the delegation, we received a communication from Hon. Nancy Jackson , the Deputy Assistance Secretary (DAS) of South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA), to have a meeting to discuss further. On 21st of Dec, FIIDS delegation met the State Department officials. During the meeting, the consular services staff discussed various steps being taken to expedite the processing, including reducing H1B and F1 visa appointment to less than few months. By then a good improvement on delays had happened on H1b and F1, however, B1/B2 was still about 900 days.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/wait-times.html
(As of Jan 24th, the B1/B2 delays are ~624 days in Mumbai consulate.)
During the meeting on 21st Dec 2022, we also raised need to expand the scope of emergency visa to also cover attending life events like child birth, marriage, graduation, or emotional help to relatives with medical condition. We also requested to consider stamping of H1b visa within the United State itself to reduce both burden on the visa appointments as well as to avoid business interruptions, which they agreed to evaluate. We also mentioned about broader issues like lifting cap on country wise GC processing.
On 21st December, FIIDS met with officials from the Bureau of Central and South Asia and the Bureau of Consular Affairs State Department official to discuss steps taken to expedite the processing, including reducing H-1B and F1 visa appointment wait time.
Subsequently, we continued the meetings and facilitated their press meet with Indian media at the State Department on 21st Feb.
We recently raised the issue of impact of tech layoffs and requested them to increase the grace period to stay and try to job from 60 days (2 months) to 180 days (6 months)
http://www.fiids-usa.org/layoffs-disrupting-lives-extend-h1b-grace-periods/
We continue to work with the US administrations on immigration related issues, that includes passing Eagle Act to cancel country wise GC cap on top of our agenda.
The Print
https://theprint.in/world/india-number-one-priority-have-reduced-wait-time-for-visa-us/1389422/
The Statesman
https://www.thestatesman.com/india/india-number-one-priority-have-reduced-wait-time-for-visa-us-1503156510.html
Economic Times
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/migrate/us-cuts-visa-delays-in-india-vows-to-do-more/articleshow/98138746.cms
