US visa wait time: 1 lakh appointments in 'next few weeks'; embassy to hire temp staff to boost operations

The US embassy in India is taking steps to reduce the massive wait time for visa applicants after India’s External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar raised the matter with Secretary Antony Blinken, EAM’s US counterpart.

Don Hefin, the minister counsellor for consular affairs at the US embassy in New Delhi on Thursday said steps such as additional temporary staff and more drop boxes, requiring no appointment for those who already had a lapsed US visa, will help reduce the waiting period for visa applicants. He further added that over 1 lakh appointments would be opened for the H and L visa categories. The US embassy also expects staffing at consulates in India to reach pre-Covid levels in less than a year, according to a Times of India report.

Hefin explained that at the height of Covid, the visa staff available with the American embassy was only 50% of what it needed to operate normally. “Now we have 70%. We’re going to be about 100% staffing a little bit before next year…at the point, we’ll be able to handle about 100% of the volume of applications we got before Covid.”

“Washington is sending temporary staff from other big embassies. So, we should come to a point sometime between now and next summer where we’re able to handle somewhat more cases,” he added.

It is to be noted that the appointment wait time for visitors in Mumbai and Delhi is 833 days while that in Beijing and Guangzhou is just 2 days and 18 days respectively.

The longest wait time is for B1 (business) and B2 (visitor) first-time applicants. Hefin said the embassy is working to fix that in the next few months as well.

Acknowledging that Indians working on H1 and L visas in the US have not been able to come home as they need to get their passports stamped in order to return. Hefin said the embassy will be opening 1 lakh appointments for those categories.

EAM Jaishankar offered support to American authorities to help reduce the large backlog when he raised the matter with Secretary Blinken.