The Donald Trump administration has temporarily halted immigrant visa processing at US embassies and consulates around the world as Washington steps up efforts to restrict immigration and prevent new arrivals from becoming dependent on public assistance.
A State Department official confirmed the development on Tuesday, saying the initiative was rolled out across US diplomatic missions in early August.
The official said visa appointments were being adjusted to allow consular officers to undergo “in-depth training” aimed at strengthening their ability to assess applications.
The State Department said the training was necessary to ensure that consular officers could evaluate applicants “comprehensively and consistently”.
The suspension has already affected applicants with previously scheduled interviews. According to reports, some applicants received emails informing them that their appointments had been cancelled and that replacement dates would be provided later.
The Financial Times reported that the policy was aimed at ensuring that prospective immigrants would not become reliant on US government welfare programmes after entering the country.
The move represents another escalation of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, which have increasingly focused on tightening both legal and illegal migration.
The latest action followed the administration’s announcement of plans to revoke the visas of asylum seekers who entered the United States initially on tourist or business visas before applying for asylum.
The State Department said it was working with the Department of Homeland Security to identify such individuals and review their visas.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said using a visa to enter the US for a purpose different from that stated in the application could amount to fraud, which he said was grounds for visa revocation.
The White House has estimated that as many as 200,000 visas could be revoked under the initiative, describing it as the largest mass visa revocation exercise in US history.
The State Department has not endorsed that figure, however, saying the number of revocations remained subject to change and that cancellations would be carried out progressively.
The immigrant visa pause also follows an earlier Trump administration attempt to introduce restrictions based on so-called “public charge” considerations.
The earlier policy reportedly affected applicants from 75 countries but was recently blocked by a federal judge.
Immigration lawyers and advocacy groups have expressed concern over the latest suspension, particularly its impact on applicants who had already spent significant amounts of money preparing for interviews.
Brian Simmons, an attorney with Fragomen, a Washington-based immigration law firm, said many applicants could have spent thousands of dollars and made significant personal arrangements in anticipation of their interviews, only to have them cancelled at short notice.
It is not yet clear when the cancelled interviews will be rescheduled or when normal immigrant visa processing will resume.
The administration has introduced several other measures aimed at tightening visa screening, including scrutiny of applicants’ social media histories and additional processing charges, according to the Associated Press.
The developments have added to growing uncertainty for people seeking to relocate permanently to the United States as the Trump administration continues to overhaul the country’s immigration system.
Leave a Reply