Flickr Creative Commons Attribution Jeroen Akkermans In the last months, the U.S. Department of State released two significant policy updates that impact both immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applicants. These updates focus on a core change: applicants will now be required to have their visa interviews in their place of residence…
Starting September 2, 2025, the U.S. Department of State will implement major changes that limit eligibility for nonimmigrant visa interview waivers. Under the State Department’s new revised policy, most applicants—including children under 14 and adults over 79—will be required to attend an in-person interview with a U.S. consular officer, with…
On February 18, 2025, the U.S. Department of State (DOS) announced new changes to the Visa Interview Waiver program, further adding to the unpredictability of the Trump administration. Among these changes, the State Department has limited the categories of non-immigrants who are eligible to receive waivers of the in-person interview…
We bring you this breaking news to inform our readers that the Trump administration has ordered U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide to begin the process of firing its staff members and has taken further actions to dramatically change the operations of the foreign service moving forward. The U.S. foreign service…
On May 13, 2024, the State Department announced record breaking milestones including the issuance of a whopping 5.2 million nonimmigrant visas at U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide in the first half of fiscal year 2024 – more than any previous year over the same period. In the past six months…
If you’ve been a long-time follower of our blog, you’ll know that on January 29th the Department of State launched a pilot program giving certain H-1B applicants the ability to renew their visas without ever having to leave the United States. The State Department accepted applications for this pilot program…
The past year saw big victories for worldwide visa operations. The Department of State recently provided statistics summarizing its visa processing capacity in the year 2023. The recent data shows tremendous advancement in visa processing capacity at Consular posts globally and provides a strong outlook for visa processing in the…
In the nick of time, on December 21, 2023, the Department of State announced that it will continue its interview waiver policy for certain nonimmigrant visa applicants. The agency’s interview waiver policy was previously set to expire on December 31, 2023. However, its implementation will continue starting on January 1,…
Our readers will be happy to know that the Department of State has released a new update in the month of October on the status of worldwide consular visa operations. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a period of uncertainty and created tremendous backlogs at the Consular level. As most of you…
More immigration news is coming your way. This week important updates have been released for F-1 students seeking post-completion Optional Practical Training in certain STEM-related fields of study. DHS Issues Advance Copy of STEM Designated Degree Program List for post-completion Optional Practical Training If you are an international student studying…