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US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

travel.state.gov

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Re: US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

#91

Post by viceconsole »

maxerickson wrote: post #82
viceconsole wrote: post #65

I was a US diplomat in India for 2 years and processed tens of thousands of visas. While this change will cause some inconvenience for, e.g., current H-1B visa holders from India who can no longer travel to Canada or Mexio to apply for new visas, in general it makes a lot of sense. I worked at the number one H-1B processing post worldwide. Our post had the expertise to quickly evaluate applications and approve the cl…

Why not disconnect the reviewer from the submission location then?

Because there is a statutory requirement that applicants who require an interview appear personally before a consular officer. So far, the State Department has interpreted this to mean "standing physically in front of".

Having done tens of thousands of visa interviews, I do think the requirement of a physical appearance before an officer is important. I could quickly review a person's travel history by looking through their passports, questioning them about prior trips. A person's travel patterns and visas to other countries can tell you a lot. I could quickly use a UV light or magnifier on educational documents to see if they were genuine. Several times, I overhead conversations from other applicants and officers that were relevant to my applicant (same employer/group) and I would consult with them. There are many other details you notice when doing this in person thousands of times.

There are also practical matters - if you're trying to do this via video link, how to you authenticate the person on the other end? At the consulate, we fingerprint them and compare them to previously collected biometrics. If you offload this authentication to a contractor site in the US, but I'm in India, is this site open in the middle of the night?

In cases where the applicant qualifies for a waiver of the interview, the State Department actually does (or at least did when I was there) have a substantial program whereby visa applications are largely processed remotely. An applicant would have no hint as to whether or not that happened, though.

Re: US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

#93

Post by maxerickson »

viceconsole wrote: post #91
maxerickson wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not disconnect the reviewer from the submission location then?

Because there is a statutory requirement that applicants who require an interview appear personally before a consular officer. So far, the State Department has interpreted this to mean "standing physically in front of". Having done tens of thousands of visa interviews, I do think the requirement of a physical appearance before an officer is important. I could quickly review a person's travel history by looking throug…

Is there a statutory requirement that the consular officer that conducts the interview make a decision without input from other people?

Like it seems hilariously backwards in your example that the cheaters were able to make an end run around the system you praise, when it would be easy to have someone local taking a look at global applications. Or just applications that someone thought were odd.

Re: US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

#94

Post by CamperBob2 »

linotype wrote: post #80
julienchastang wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also agree that this comment is likely AI generated (i.e., "why this matters" gave it away for me. I think I've seen this phrase a lot with ChatGPT). I think it is the last part of the last sentence and the toeing of the party line that bugs me, "likely aimed at improving security screening and preventing abuse of the system". It's "Manufacturing Consent"[0] à la 21st Century. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manu…

Again, please point out what’s wrong in the post and I will correct it.

As jeffbee says, most HN users are perfectly capable of using ChatGPT as well.

Re: US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

#95

Post by steviedotboston »

blindfolded_go wrote: post #72
viceconsole wrote: post #65

I was a US diplomat in India for 2 years and processed tens of thousands of visas. While this change will cause some inconvenience for, e.g., current H-1B visa holders from India who can no longer travel to Canada or Mexio to apply for new visas, in general it makes a lot of sense. I worked at the number one H-1B processing post worldwide. Our post had the expertise to quickly evaluate applications and approve the cl…

Thanks for sharing your experience. Good to get some real-world data in this thread as opposed to the emotional condemnations of this rule change.

People make two big assumptions about immigration in my experience

1) They think the system should be extremely simple 2) They assume everyone involved is being honest

When the reality is

1) Many people involved are lying to claim immigration benefits they have no right to 2) The system needs to have a level of complexity and difficulty to prevent these people from accessing these benefits

Re: US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

#96

Post by FirmwareBurner »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #27
fblp wrote: post #18

Also. "Effective immediately". Too bad for the tens of thousands of people who would be in legitimate process for a visa outside their country home country right now. This administrations arrogance and urgency is more important.

It explicitly doesn't affect people who already have appointments / who are in process. Read the link.

[flagged]

Re: US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

#97

Post by returningfory2 »

abxyz wrote: post #66
throw-the-towel wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schengen works exactly like this. Also Japan I think.

I don’t know about Schengen but that’s not correct for Japan. You can get a visa to visit Japan from an embassy in a country you’re not a resident or national of, there’s no requirement for the visa to be issued in your country of nationality (although some embassies may choose not to accept applications from non-residents or non-nationals).

The Japanese embassy and consulates in the US only accept applications from residents of the US.

E.g. the NYC consulate: https://www.ny.us.emb-japan.go.jp/itpr_en/visa00.html

> You may apply for a visa at this Consulate if you are currently residing within the area covered by this Consulate.

Re: US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

#98

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #52
abxyz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Do you have any examples? I’ve had visas around the world (and encountered numerous weird requirements) but never have I been required to apply for a visa from my country of nationality. Even China, which is very restrictive, allows for non-national applications. (And in fact, in my experience, it is getting easier with online applications becoming more common.)

Schengen works exactly like this. Also Japan I think.

Schengen does not work like that. While you are supposed to apply from the country you are a resident in, if you have valid reasons you can apply from any other country. This is also frequently necessary (eg: traveller without fixed residence).

Re: US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

#99

Post by [deleted] »

steviedotboston wrote: post #95
blindfolded_go wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Good to get some real-world data in this thread as opposed to the emotional condemnations of this rule change.

People make two big assumptions about immigration in my experience 1) They think the system should be extremely simple 2) They assume everyone involved is being honest When the reality is 1) Many people involved are lying to claim immigration benefits they have no right to 2) The system needs to have a level of complexity and difficulty to prevent these people from accessing these benefits

[deleted]

Re: US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

#100

Post by amluto »

fallpeak wrote: post #57
amluto wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This effectively ends “visa shopping” - the practice of applying at embassies with shorter wait times or perceived easier approval rates. It also prevents circumventing countries where the US has suspended visa operations. Exceptions remain for diplomatic visas, UN-related travel, and emergency/humanitarian cases. Let’s give this a computer analogy. Suppose I run a multi-datacenter service, and I have an endpoint i…

Now do the comparison if one endpoint is realtime user facing traffic and the other is batch processing which can easily eat up all available capacity and drive up latency. If visa shoppers are overwhelming the normal processing of applicants who actually live in a particular country, it seems entirely appropriate to say "no, sorry, this location isn't for you" to the people who don't live there.

How about hiring more people? For that matter, why is the decision made in the local consulate or embassy anyway?

The whole worldwide visa system feels like a relic of the time before networks. Many tasks rely on physically moving pieces of paper around, leaving your passport with agents of a foreign government (!), and having documents that are stamped and supposedly authenticated. Shouldn’t everyone be able to separate the tasks of authenticating a person and authorizing that person to be somewhere?

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