Anil Wagde, who works in the US, came to India in April and has been stuck since.
Wagde’s application for visa extension has been approved by US immigration authorities. But his Indian passport carries the old stamp, which expired in August 2020. To return to the US, he needs a valid stamp on the passport, for which he has to wait till October 2023.
“Usually it takes three to four weeks to get appointments for verification of papers and stamping on the passport. But this time, they have given me appointments after a waiting period of 12 months. My daughter is alone in Atlanta. This waiting time is a big problem,” Wagde said.
US embassy officials on Thursday told reporters that India remained a priority country for Washington and steps were being taken to reduce the waiting period for visa services. The official said the wait time was about nine months now.
“We are trying to streamline the process and bring down the wait time. It should take six months to get back to pre-Covid processing speed,” a US embassy official said.
The measures include engaging more staff for processing visa documents and expanding drop-box facilities. The drop boxes are for those who have been exempted from appearing for interviews since they were issued visas in recent years. The processing is faster for those using this facility.
“Beginning summer 2023, we will overtake (the number of) cases we handled before Covid. We would be able to process 1.2 million cases,” the official said.
Visas are issued to students (F category), hi-tech and skilled workers (H and L), tourists and business persons (B1 and B2) and crew (C and D). To reduce the waiting time, the US has opened one lakh visa slots for H and L categories, the official said. The wait time earlier was about 450 days, which has already come down to about nine months.
To handle the backlog, the state department is sending temporary staff too, the official said. “We are taking some innovative steps. We are taking some drop-box cases and sending them to remote places. We can have people in other countries to look at these cases,” the official said. Students apply for visas depending on the admission season.
“We expect student visas to go up reasonably,” the official said. Going by the current trend of applications in India and the decline in applications in China, the projection is that India will be among the top countries after Mexico to get US visas next summer in all categories, another official said. Asked about the difficulty faced by H1B visa holders, the official said that to return to the US, they have to get their visas stamped.
Wagde, who has been working in Atlanta for the past five years on an H1B visa given to skilled workers, said he was yet to see evidence of a reduction in waiting time. “What they are saying sounds good. On the ground, its impact is yet to be seen,” he said.
“Many want to come to India to meet their families and return. When they apply for stamping, they get a long waiting period. If they come to India, they cannot return for that period. So, many people are staying back. Many who have come here like me are helpless,” Wagde said.
This crisis has created avenues for fleecing. Many private agents offer faster stamping services by charging around Rs 25,000 per passport. Many students and workers are going to nearby countries like Vietnam to get fresh stamps on their passports.
“I am planning to go to Vietnam and get my passport stamped there. Stamping is possible within one week if I transfer my stamping application to the US embassy in Vietnam,” Wagde said. The US embassy official said India could not be compared with other countries on the waiting period issue.
“It is not correct to compare the waiting time for citizens of other countries with that for Indian citizens. We have reasons. Some countries are very small and we may not have so many applications. But that is not the case with India,” the official said.
