US consulate in Kolkata announced a major B1/B2 visa update.
In a major update for visitors’ visa, the US Consulate in Kolkata announced that it is starting priority slots for parents aged 50 years and above who want to visit their children, residing legally in the US. “We are helping with shorter wait times for qualified travelers with established ties and verified purposes,” the announcement said. The consulate called it “American First in Family Values”.The Kolkata consulate also announced a new visa scheduling system for verified business travelers. “Consulate Kolkata is launching a new visa scheduling system that puts legitimate business travelers at the front of the line. Supporting trade, investment, and economic growth between the US and India: because when business thrives, America thrives,” they announced.B1/B2 visa applicants recently started seeing a higher denial rate, as visa experts observed that visa officers are emphasizing on being doubly sure that these tourist or business visa applicants have stronger ties to India and that they would not settle in the US. Before the official announcement, visa speciality Priyesh Sharma said these new categories were only appearing for accounts selecting the embassy/consulate as Kolkata. Sharma said the consulate opened four new categories under B1/B2:
- Business professionals (conditions apply)
- Parents visiting children with legal status (conditions apply)
- General tourism and travel (open to all applicants with no record of refusal)
- Recent visa refusal (24 months)
“I can’t really say what could be the motive behind this and if it will soon be applied to all other Consulates/Embassy but what I think is, this will be used as a key dataset to manage the high volumes of applications for slots allotment and their administrative tasks as well. Not that when you apply for a fresh visa, the officer doesn’t know about your previous refusals but by bringing a category they will just segregate the fresh vs repeat and may even have a different internal SOP for the people with past rejections, ” Sharma said.
