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NEW DELHI: An H-1B visa holder expressed their frustration over a sudden visa rescheduling that moved their December interview to March 2026 and left them unable to return to the US.The user shared their experience in a post on the workplace forum Blind. He said the rescheduling appears linked to a new social media vetting policy. Officials are now reviewing applicants’ posts on platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to check for content seen as negative toward the US.
“So I am one of those unlucky souls who got hit by the mass rescheduling this week. I had my h1b interview scheduled for December and got an email saying its moved to March 2026. MARCH. That’s literally 3 months away,” the uservwrote.They said the lack of information from employers has made the situation worse. “The worst part is nobody knows what’s happening. The immigration team at my company is clueless, HR is giving generic responses like ‘we understand your frustration’ which helps exactly zero percent,” they added.
The visa holder said they are currently stuck in India after their I-94 expired and are on unpaid leave. They’ve been relying on personal savings while waiting for updates and said a request to work from his company’s India office had not been answered.The user also noted that starting January 1, visa applicants will be allowed only one free rescheduling. If they miss the March appointment or needs to change it again, a visa fee of about Rs 16,000 will have to be paid. “Thousands of us got hit at the same time. december was supposed to be peak season for h1b stamping and they just wiped out the entire month. people who took expensive flights, booked hotels, all of that just gone,” they wrote.They ended the post by asking if others were facing the same situation and whether they were trying to get emergency appointments or arranging to work from India.The disruptions follow a new US State Department rule announced on December 3 that requires social-media screening for all H-1B workers and their H-4 dependents starting December 15. The rule is slowing down interviews, especially at busy consulates in Hyderabad and Chennai, and has led to mass cancellations of appointments originally scheduled for mid-to-late December 2025. Many of these appointments have been pushed into next year, with some as far out as June 2026.The US Embassy in India has warned that arriving on an old appointment date could lead to denial of entry. Immigration lawyers are now advising H-1B holders in the US to avoid non-essential travel.Under the new directive, all H-1B and H-4 applicants must make their social media profiles public so consular officers can review their online activity. Experts say this represents one of the largest expansions of digital-footprint scrutiny in the visa process to date.
