US envoy joins consular team to interview Indian visa applicants

According to a news release from the US Embassy, US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti interviewed more than 1,000 applications for guest visas on Monday alongside the consular team at the US Embassy.

The US envoy arrived to support the embassy team for the first of four "Super Saturday" visa processing events held by the US Embassy in New Delhi in 2024.

Ambassador Garcetti said, "The foundation of our US-India partnership is the network of relationships that individuals form when they work, travel, and study in the United States."

"The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi opened its doors on Saturday, March 9, 2024, to interview over 1,000 visitor visa applicants. Ambassador Garcetti joined the Embassy team to support the surge and assist in the fingerprint verification process," the US Embassy said in a statement.

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US envoy Garcetti said, "We're doing everything we can to facilitate the visa process and support critical people-to-people connections."

He further stressed that the US Mission in India has increased staffing and harnessed technological innovations to meet the unprecedented demand and process more visas than ever before.

Earlier in 2023, the US Embassy and Consulates in India processed a record-smashing 1.4 million US visas.

"Demand across all visa classes was unprecedented, with a 60 per cent increase in applications compared to 2022," the statement added.

Remarkably, one in ten international applicants for US visas are Indian.

Furthermore, nationwide appointment wait times for visitor visas have decreased from an average of 1,000 days to just 250 days due to process upgrades and personnel increases, with the lowest wait times across all categories.

(With agency inputs)