NEW DELHI, Dec 26: India said today that it has taken up with the US, the issue of cancellation of scheduled H-1B visa interviews that has affected thousands of Indians.
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that India is “actively engaged” with the US side to address the issue, but stressed that visa matters “fall under the sovereign domain of the issuing country”.
“The Government of India has received multiple representations from Indian nationals facing delays and difficulties in scheduling or rescheduling US visa appointments. While visa matters fall under the sovereign domain of the issuing country, India has raised these concerns with the US authorities in New Delhi and Washington DC. These delays have caused extended hardships for affected individuals and their families, including disruptions to education. The government remains actively engaged with the US side to address the issue and minimise the impact on Indian nationals,” he said at the weekly media briefing.
“We have flagged these issues and our concerns of our nationals to the US side, both here in New Delhi and in Washington DC, and we hope that these delays and these disruptions will be addressed.
“There are several people who have been stranded for extended period of time because of rescheduling issues of consular appointments and these have also caused a lot of hardships to their families, family life that they have as also to the education of their children.”
The US visa centre has been cancelling scheduled visa interviews and giving the applicants slots for several months later, as under the Trump administration the social media accounts of visa applicants have to be mandatorily scrutinised, which is a time-consuming process and thus causing the delays. Now to scrutinise one person’s visa application is taking half an hour or more, as the US Embassy official has to go through five years of the social media history of the applicant.
The US Department of Homeland Security has also scrapped the random lottery system to select H-1B visa applications and replaced it with a weighted selection system.
(UNI)
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