![]() ![]() It’s a huge loss.”ĭeepa Patil,originally from India, secured an O-1 extraordinary ability visa in July after she was hired as a senior research scientist at Boston-area biomedical startup Transcera.īut what was supposed to be a weeks-long trip to Mumbai for a passport stamp in August has turned into an open-ended stay after a visa appointment at the consular office there ended with a referral to administrative processing. “That takes a huge chunk out of profitability out of the employers’ pocket when you can’t get that person in the country. “You’ll see people with H-1Bs and Ls who time out on the validity period and have those visas expire while they’re in 221g,” Wasden said. In some cases, the processing time even outlasts the visa itself, he said. ![]() There is no regulation setting a deadline for the State Department to complete administrative processing, and the wait can significantly eat into the length of a visa. For visas with a limited duration, such as H-1B visas and L-1 intracompany transferee visas, the clock starts ticking as soon as USCIS approves it, Wasden said. ![]() While the DHS’s US Citizenship and Immigration Services determines eligibility for a visa, the State Department decides if an applicant is admissible to enter the US. The duration of additional reviews vary based on the individual circumstances in each case, and the State Department encourages travelers to submit visa applications well ahead of their expected travel dates, the spokesperson said. “If an applicant requires additional screening for whatever reason, we will not issue a visa until that screening is complete.” “Before issuing any visa, we must ensure that applicants do not pose a security risk to the United States and otherwise are eligible for a visa,” the spokesperson said. The term “administrative processing” could refer to various additional steps needed to complete an assessment of a visa, an agency spokesperson said. ![]() The agency didn’t comment on the rate of cases referred for that additional scrutiny. The State Department releases statistics on visa refusals, but not cases referred for administrative processing. When a case is put into administrative processing, the agency technically considers it a visa denial, although applicants can overcome the issues that prompt additional screening.īut it could take anywhere from weeks to months or a year to reach a resolution, said Fuji Whittenburg, managing partner at Whittenburg Immigration and chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s State Department liaison committee. “No one has seen this before.”Ĭonsular offices can put visas on hold under Section 221g of the Immigration and Nationality Act because of missing paperwork, or if an application is tagged for additional security screening-especially workers in fields with access to sensitive technology that could have a potential military use for foreign powers.ĭelays in work visa processing can have an outsized impact on industries like tech-which claimed nearly 70% of H-1B specialty occupation visas in fiscal year 2020-or architecture, engineering, and surveying, which claimed more than 9% of the visas. “What we’re hearing across the board from immigration attorneys is it’s an epidemic,” said Jonathan Wasden, a partner at Wasden Bless & Forney LLC. But the once-perfunctory process has become a nightmare for many. Immigrants already wait weeks or months for an appointment to get a passport stamp to travel to the US, which is supposed to be the last step after receiving visa approval from the Homeland Security Department. Those additional reviews, known as administrative processing, often come with no explanation for what the issues are with the applications, how applicants can address them, and no timetable for a resolution, immigration attorneys say. A growing number of immigrant workers already beset by government backlogs now face an additional hurdle-their applications at US consulates and embassies are being put on hold pending further review from the State Department. ![]()
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