If you’ve been waiting to appear for your USA tourist visa interview, here is some good news for you. The USA Embassy in Delhi will resume regular tourist visa interviews, starting this September. Here’s what we know. By Anushka Goel
On Sunday, the USA embassy in India announced that this September, they will resume regular and tourist B1-B2 visa appointments, after the rush of the student visa interviews has subsided. This comes as a relief for thousands who have been wanting to visit the country for long, now.
Regular and tourist visa interviews for the USA to resume
The U.S. Mission to India is pleased to announce that we are resuming routine in-person tourist visa appointments in September 2022. Previously scheduled placeholders have now been cancelled.
— U.S. Embassy India (@USAndIndia) May 29, 2022
In a tweet, the US Embassy in India shared this update, adding that the previously scheduled placeholders have been cancelled. This means that applicants will now have to re-enter the visa interview scheduling system, to be eligible for regular appointments, the announcement added.
What are placeholders?
Previously scheduled placeholders were the B1-B2 visitor visa interview appointment slots that were given to first-time applicants, who were not eligible for an interview waiver, writes Times of India. These placeholders were not actual interview slots, however, since the interviews were not actually being conducted, the media report states, reasoning why these will not be cancelled.
Why did visa appointments stop?
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Since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, the USA mission in India stopped conducting in-person interviews for B1-B2 visas. Now, with this latest update coming as a relief to masses, the applicants will have to book their regular slots through the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) scheduling system.
Applicants who held a placeholder slot were given the option to raise expedited or emergency appointment for interviews, but in case these conditions have not been fulfilled, the request has likely been cancelled.
This latest update comes as a relief for those who have been wanting to visit the USA for long, to meet families or to explore the scenic sights the nation has to offer. With the pandemic receding and international borders reopening, countries are slowly inching back to pre-pandemic travel norms, and the availability of regular visas to the USA is a step towards the same.
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