According to Don Heflin, minister counsellor for consular affairs at the United States Embassy in New Delhi, the United States is getting ready to open up 100,000 visa slots for workers in the H and L categories. While addressing concerns over visas, Don Heflin provided information regarding the opening of new visa slots.
In addition, he mentioned that the visa quotas for the H and L worker categories will be available over the following two weeks. The official stated that the lengthy wait time for visas is due to the widespread Covid pandemic, and that personnel levels at US consulates will recover to pre-Covid levels in a little under a year. He went on to say that in order to cut down on the lengthy wait times, temporary employees and drop boxes are being set up.
“Our recovery from the staffing issues caused by Covid and those caused by its aftermath is well under way. When Covid was at its peak, and even for some time after it ended, we only had roughly half of the (visa staffing) that we ought to have had. We’re at about 70 percent right now. We are going to be at approximately 100% staffing a little bit before this time next year… at that point, (we’ll be) able to manage about 100% of the volume of (applications) we got before Covid, so don’t worry about us not being able to handle them all “Don Heflin stated.
This comes as a result of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s discussion with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week, in which he brought up the subject of the backlog of visa applications coming from India. The most senior American ambassador stated that he understands the gravity of the situation and is working on a solution to the problem.
