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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

#121

Post by em-bee »

HeavenFox wrote: post #108

This is a significant problem for Chinese H1B holders, because the visa sticker for Chinese passport is only valid for one year. You can stay for longer, but cannot come back if you leave the U.S. Historically folks have been getting their visa renewed in Canada or Mexico, and this is already a huge annoyance - not only do you have to make a pointless trip, but also appointments in these countries are very hard to ge…

not having Domestic Visa Renewal sounds like the most ridiculous oversight. i get making your first application from home, but renewal should always be in your target country. it's absurd to demand that people travel home once a year to renew their visa.

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

#122

Post by ashray »

motbus3 wrote: post #110
steviedotboston wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't doubt you Stevie, but I wonder if you could share any sources, proofs of data regarding your remark #1 about people lying. I believe it is happens and I assume there might be a number of drivers for it, but I wonder how big of a problem is it in reality and how much has it been abused. For example, friends told me the scheme in the UK might be too prone for fraud on the other hand most of the anti immigration…

It's well known that people often lie on visa applications and try to immigrate illegally. The US publishes a yearly review of overstayers broken down by country of origin. So you can see where the highest problem areas are. Sometimes this is masked because of way stricter visa issuance policies. So for example, you may not see a super high overstay percentage for India because many folks get rejected at the visa application stage. But still, this gives you a clearer picture of how rampant the lying is and the subsequent "disappearing" in the US.

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-08/25_0826_cbp_...

I can't address your other concerns about economic impact etc. I'm not sure if there is a negative economic impact from this.

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

#123

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#124

Post by pandaman »

em-bee wrote: post #121
HeavenFox wrote: post #108

This is a significant problem for Chinese H1B holders, because the visa sticker for Chinese passport is only valid for one year. You can stay for longer, but cannot come back if you leave the U.S. Historically folks have been getting their visa renewed in Canada or Mexico, and this is already a huge annoyance - not only do you have to make a pointless trip, but also appointments in these countries are very hard to ge…

not having Domestic Visa Renewal sounds like the most ridiculous oversight. i get making your first application from home, but renewal should always be in your target country. it's absurd to demand that people travel home once a year to renew their visa.

Visa stamp is not needed to stay in the US, it's only to cross the border into the US. Also, coincidentally, a visa stamp can only be issued by a consulate and I don't know of any country that has consulates on its own land.

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

#125

Post by em-bee »

pandaman wrote: post #124
em-bee wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not having Domestic Visa Renewal sounds like the most ridiculous oversight. i get making your first application from home, but renewal should always be in your target country. it's absurd to demand that people travel home once a year to renew their visa.

Visa stamp is not needed to stay in the US, it's only to cross the border into the US. Also, coincidentally, a visa stamp can only be issued by a consulate and I don't know of any country that has consulates on its own land.

a visa stamp can only be issued by a consulate

as i said, that's a weird US rule. i do not believe that there are many countries in the world that have such a rule. i have never encountered something like that on my travels.

I don't know of any country that has consulates on its own land

not relevant because most countries simply don't need a consulate to renew visas.

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

#126

Post by daft_pink »

viceconsole wrote: post #67
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.)

It's common for countries to require you to apply from your country of nationality or residence, and to prove lawful residence if you're not a national of the country you're applying in. I'm in the middle of a French visa application for my daughter right now, and she must apply in the U.S. where she's a citizen.

I’m not an expert at this, but is it true that the US is very unique in requiring interviews for all tourist visas and for almost every visa?

I’m American and every visa I’ve had to apply for did not require my physical presence at the embassy and I used a third-party processing service to get everything done.

Therefore, while I would need to apply to these countries from their US embassy because my physical presence was not required, I would generally not need to return to the United States to obtain their visa?

And this aspect of a US visa does make it significantly harder even though the application policy is similar to other countries?

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

#127

Post by foogazi »

ashray wrote: post #16

This was already the case for almost every other country. Most embassies required you to be resident or a national of the country you are applying in. So oddly, the US was far more permissive than other locales in this one aspect. All this change does is bring it in line with security practices that other nations already had in place. Honestly am quite surprised that the US didn’t already have this restriction consid…

> This was already the case for almost every other country.

The US started of as a “zero to one” - a “sui-generis” state - unlike any other

Over time the people that gave in to the temptation to copy others, to be imperialistic, to be a colonizer, to be a slaver, to be expansionist all managed to damage the soul of the country- and still they keep trying

Why the insistence of being like almost every other country ?

> Most embassies required you to be resident or a national of the country you are applying in.

Were not like other countries

> So oddly, the US was far more permissive than other locales in this one aspect. All this change does is bring it in line with security practices that other nations already had in place.

We won two world wars and put a man on the moon - and you want to bring the US in line ?

The greatest experiment in state-building and you want to make it average?

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

#128

Post by pandaman »

em-bee wrote: post #125
pandaman wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visa stamp is not needed to stay in the US, it's only to cross the border into the US. Also, coincidentally, a visa stamp can only be issued by a consulate and I don't know of any country that has consulates on its own land.

a visa stamp can only be issued by a consulate as i said, that's a weird US rule. i do not believe that there are many countries in the world that have such a rule. i have never encountered something like that on my travels. I don't know of any country that has consulates on its own land not relevant because most countries simply don't need a consulate to renew visas.

I imagine countries, that stamp visas in the port of arrival are such but since US requires extensive checks and interview of a visa applicant, like many other countries, there is just no possible need for that.

>not relevant because most countries simply don't need a consulate to renew visas.

It's pretty relevant since what other institution is equipped to vet foreigners for visa eligibility?

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

#129

Post by hulitu »

foogazi wrote: post #127
ashray wrote: post #16

This was already the case for almost every other country. Most embassies required you to be resident or a national of the country you are applying in. So oddly, the US was far more permissive than other locales in this one aspect. All this change does is bring it in line with security practices that other nations already had in place. Honestly am quite surprised that the US didn’t already have this restriction consid…

> This was already the case for almost every other country. The US started of as a “zero to one” - a “sui-generis” state - unlike any other Over time the people that gave in to the temptation to copy others, to be imperialistic, to be a colonizer, to be a slaver, to be expansionist all managed to damage the soul of the country- and still they keep trying Why the insistence of being like almost every other country ? >…

> We won two world wars and put a man on the moon - and you want to bring the US in line ?

Citation needed /s

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

#130

Post by efitz »

tzs wrote: post #109
efitz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please refer me to the part of the Constitution that enumerates the responsibility of the US government to preserve the business model of the modern university system?

Unless you are arguing that government actions should not be criticized unless they are in violation of the Constitution, your comment makes no sense in the context of any comment that is an ancestor of it in the comment tree. Did you response to the wrong comment or get a little mixed up about the shape of the comments tree or what?

click on the “parent” link for my comment
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