Our regular readers are aware, that some nonimmigrants may be eligible for Emergency Appointment despite the U.S. consular section closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our earlier update on this can be found here.

Over the past several weeks U.S. consular officers, and personnel have assisted over a thousand US citizens and certain lawful permanent residents to return to the United States from around the world. Though all the consular posts in India cancelled most visa appointments as of March 16, 2020, the consular section continues to issue visas to nonimmigrants with emergency needs. As of this writing, the following limited circumstances are eligible for emergency visa appointment requests:

• Key military, medical and health personnel, officials and diplomats; and
• On a limited case-by case basis, individuals with genuine emergency need to travel, especially children.

Given the pandemic, it should be noted that consular officers consider only life or death situations as emergency. Any request with urgent business necessity, family matters, or elective surgery, will be denied and could end up delaying the processing of emergency visas for others.

Nonimmigrants in India fitting the above description may login into their profile on http://cdn.ustraveldocs.com/in/ and raise a request. If you need to reach out during the consulate hours or on the weekend, it is advised to call the consular post directly and ask to be connected to the duty officer, who can convey your request directly to consular management for possible consideration. Again, it is better not to raise an issue except in a true emergency, as explained above.

Should you need any assistance, attorneys at Murthy Immigration Services Private Limited (MISPL) are always available for help.

We hope you and your families are safe and healthy. At MISPL, we look forward to continuing to serve the community when you are ready to make plans to travel to the U.S. for family or business matters, so that you can be well prepared when the world reopens.