Our Bureau
New Delhi
The US is set to begin a pilot program for domestic renewal of certain categories of H-1B visas in December. According to a US official, this step will benefit a significantly large number of Indian technology professionals.
Julie Stufft, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services, said, “In India, the demand (for US visas) is still very high. The wait time of 6, 8, and 12 months is not what we need and (it is) not indicative of how we view India.”
Over a period of 3 months, beginning December, the State Department will be issuing 20,000 visas to foreign nationals who are already inside the country.
“We want to make sure that Indian travelers can get appointments as quickly as possible. One way we are doing that is through the domestic visa renewal program, which is focused very much on India. We are piloting that,” she said.
“We will do 20,000 in the first group. The vast majority of those will be Indian nationals living in the US and we will expand as it goes on.
“Because Indians are the largest skilled group of workers in the United States, we hope that India will benefit quite a bit from this program and it will prevent people from having to travel back to India or anywhere for a visa appointment to get their visa renewed. It will allow our missions in India to concentrate on new applicants,” Ms Stufft said.
The plan, which was mentioned in the joint statement and announced by PM Modi during his address to the Indian diaspora at the Ronald Reagan Centre, has been cheered and welcomed by the Indian community in the US.
Ms Stufft said there will be a federal register notice, which is the first official notice of this coming out very soon, and that will describe all of the steps that need to be taken and who is eligible to apply in the first tranche and lay out those instructions.
“But I can say that we are doing these visas here in the United States. So, the idea is for a visa to be mailed from the United States to us in Washington. We print the visa and process the visa, put it in the passport and send it back to someone in the United States,” she said.
