How much longer until your visa interview is scheduled?
Recent announcements from two U.S.
embassies have given us more information about what you can expect.
There are currently 421,136 cases that are documentarily complete
with the National Visa Center and waiting for a visa interview to be scheduled.
And many immigrants have waited years without word from the embassy
or the consular post responsible for scheduling their appointment.
Fortunately, embassies in India and the Philippines recently announced
which visas they are prioritizing and when they will return
to their pre-COVID interview capacity.
So let's take a look
at what these consular posts had to say, what that could mean
for your visa interview,
and what the State Department is doing to speed up
appointments at the embassies and consulates around the world.
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So how much progress has been made on the National Visa Center
immigrant visa backlog since the start of this year?
In January there were 439,373 immigrant visa
applicants who were documentarily complete and awaiting a visa interview
to be scheduled.
Now, five months later, there are 421,136 pending interviews,
a reduction of only 18,237 cases.
That is an average of 3,647 per month,
which means at the current pace it will take 98 months,
or more than eight years, to get back to pre-COVID interview levels.
When we discussed this back in February,
it was forecasted to be four and a half years to reach pre-COVID levels,
so progress seems to be slowing down rather than speeding up.
What is the State Department
doing to speed up interviews and reduce the backlog?
The growing wait time is largely due to the closure of embassies and consulates
during the pandemic, with some not working for as long as 20 months.
Upon reopening
most locations have been forced to limit operations due to local conditions,
despite facing a massive backlog of immigrants awaiting interviews.
And while many announced that they have resumed normal visa
services, appointments are still being scheduled
at a much slower pace than before the pandemic.
In response, the State Department has allocated an additional $320
million to consular services and has hired as many as 500 new consular officers
to meet the increased demand— Some of which have already started working.
They have also begun waiving interviews for some employment nonimmigrant visa
applicants, as well as for visa renewals done within 48 months of expiration.
Looking at current backlog numbers, it's clear that these measures
haven't yet made a big impact, but recent announcements from embassies
in India and the Philippines indicate that might change in the coming months.
Before we get to that, what are the current
wait times
immigrants can expect, according to the information provided by the embassy
and the State Department?
The primary tools
immigrants have available to check wait times are the Nonimmigrant Visa
Wait Time tool on the Bureau of Consular Affairs
website, and information made available on specific embassy and consulate websites.
A quick search on the Bureau of Consular Affairs tool shows that wait times
for nonimmigrant visas vary considerably, not only between different countries
but even between different consular posts within the same country.
For example, Guangzhou China shows a visitor visa wait time at just 29
days ,while the same visa wait time in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, is 379 days.
Mexico City is even longer at 574 days.
Looking on U.S.
embassy websites, there is almost no information on wait times for immigrant
visas, with most locations claiming to have resumed normal visa processes
but also cautioning that they have limited appointment availability.
Some of the best information on interview wait times comes from other immigrants
in the queue,
so please help each other out and leave a comment below letting
everyone know which country you're in and how long you've been waiting!
Okay, what recent announcements did we hear from U.S.
embassies in India and the Philippines about scheduling visa interviews?
On May 11th, the Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs
at the embassy in New Delhi went live on Instagram
and Facebook to provide an update, revealing that they will be
focused on providing visas to students in the coming months of June and July,
and that they hope to issue more than 62,000 student visas this year,
a record number.
He also confirmed that they will start focusing on B1 and B2 visas in the fall.
In order to reduce the interview backlog, they recently added five visa officers
in the consulate of Mumbai and are in the process of recruiting more.
More importantly, he announced that they expect to return to two-thirds
of their pre-COVID interview capacity by the end of 2022,
and make a complete return to processing capacity by the end of 2023.
I think that's great!
On May 25th, Consul General Mark McGovern at the embassy in the Philippines
got on Facebook Live to announce updates to their nonimmigrant and immigrant
visa processing.
He announced that they were currently prioritizing student visas
as well as H1B, H2B, and L visas.
As they increased their staffing levels, they plan to open more appointments
for B1 and B2 nonimmigrant visa applicants in the coming months.
Currently the embassy is processing visa backlogs in all categories,
prioritizing parents, spouses and children of U.S.
citizens.
He was not able to provide wait times for immigrant visa interviews,
but said that they were scheduling immediate relative immigrant cases
that were documentarily qualified with the NVC as of January 2022.
K—or fiancee—visa cases currently being scheduled
where documentarily qualified as of March 2022.
Priority employment-based cases for healthcare workers and nurses currently
being scheduled where documentarily qualified in January of 2022.
And most current family-preference cases such as immigrant visas
for siblings of U.S.
citizens are approved
expedited cases that were documentarily qualified in November 2020.
If you are not in India or the Philippines, there is a good chance
your local counselor post is also currently focused on student visas
in the coming months with similar timetables
for scheduling other types of family and employment based visas.
They are also likely in the process of hiring and training more staff
to increase capacity at the end of fiscal year 2022 and the start of 2023.
That means the NVC immigrant visa backlog will likely shrink at a faster pace
in the coming months,
and hopefully nobody will be stuck waiting eight years for their visa.
I wish I could give you a clear timetable for every embassy,
but as you know, information about visa interviews has become hard to find.
So I really hope that you will appreciate the hard work
that we put together to make this video for you.
If you would like information about speeding up your visa interview,
be sure to watch my other video where I talk about different strategies
you can use to speed up your case.
I'll include a link to that video here.
I'll also continue to bring you immigration news as it's available,
so be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications if you haven't done so yet.
Click here to watch this video next. And I'll see you there.