On December 24, 2021, we had reported the U.S. Department of State’s (DOS) decision to expand the scope for visa interview waivers for certain individual petition based nonimmigrant visas.

Based on this DOS’s announcement, the U.S. Embassy in India has announced that it will soon release more than 20,000 additional drop box appointments for Spring 2022 in order to allow eligible applicants to make use of the new interview waiver eligibility mentioned above.

However, due to reduced staffing across Consulates in India and high demand across all visa categories, long wait times should be expected for nonimmigrant visa appointments.

This update can be found here.