Visa officers in India take questions live online every Friday at 2 p.m. It is important to note that the officers will not entertain case-specific questions. This will be regarding current processes, timelines, general visa policies, etc. Applicants who wish to contact the officers may do so by following this link.

Effective April 1, 2018, the U.S. Consular post in Mumbai handles all immediate relative immigrant visa applications in India. Effectively, the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi no longer processes the following: IR5 – parent of a U.S. citizen; IR1/CR1 – spouse of a U.S. citizen; and IR2/CR2 – unmarried minor child of a U.S. citizen.…

The wait time for a nonimmigrant visa interview at the U.S. embassy / consulates in India was negligible until a few weeks ago. Applicants were able to obtain an interview date within a week or two for most categories of visas at almost any post in India. However, we have recently noticed that there is…

All U.S. nonimmigrant visa applicants must pay the MRV fee receipts, also known as visa fees, to be able to schedule a visa interview. Applicants have the option to pay the fees by cash at Axis/Citi Bank or National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT). Previously, the cash payment at Axis/Citi Bank was the fastest way to…

This article is for someone who had created a profile for a U.S. visa application in India using www.ustraveldocs.com/in (irrespective of the fact the person applied for a visa or not) and later moved to another country, and needs to apply for a U.S. visa from that country. Applying from a country that is serviced…

All nonimmigrant visa applicants should create a profile on www.ustraveldocs.com/in to schedule the visa interview. There may be situations where a profile is outdated, and the applicant can no longer use the eMail ID that was originally used to create the profile, or the applicant could have previously been a co-applicant or a dependent applicant…

We provided an update on the conversion of PIO (Person of Indian Origin) cards to OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) cards without consular fees in our July 2017 bulletin. A recent update on the website of Cox & Kings Global Services, the official partner of Embassy of India in the United States, indicates the revision…

A recent update on form DS-160 indicates that all nonimmigrant visa applicants must include the start date of the present employment. This update may seem trivial, but this information may help the consular officer understand the number of years/months the applicant has been working in the present organization, which could potentially impact the outcome of…

The policy memorandum issued by the USCIS on Feb 22, 2018 requires H1B petitioners to submit proper documentation for the H1B employees who will be working from an end-client/third party location. The petitioner must include an itinerary with the specific worksite(s) and dates of service for each worksite, along with relevant contracts, specific statement of…

On February 6, 2018, we had reported that the Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC) was temporarily unavailable since February 5, 2018. The services have resumed and now, U.S. visa applicants can continue to check the status of thier application online.