The travel restrictions are among the most burdensome aspects of the visa-life in the US. Given how protracted processing can be, you can be stuck for months. Robert, is there a reasonable way to disentangle these travel restrictions from visa processing and provide relief to immigrants or is the whole thing just baked into the way immigration works? Love your newsletters, thank you so much for writing them!
If a person is seeking a visa, like an H-1B, one way to mitigate is not to get the visa at a US consulate in India. The US consulates in India are very bad on 221g delays whereas third country processing can often be easier. So you make a trip to a third country and get the visa stamped. Some Indians have gone to the US consulate in Fiji - there is no entry requirement for Indian citizens and a nice vacation.
While this is undoubtedly a pragmatic option, as a former visa holder, here’s why Indians hesitate to do this.
The single biggest worry is getting stuck in a third country. Everything else I say flows from this concern -
1. They worry about the expense and stress involved in an uncertain, extended stay at a random place.
2. In case of extended processing, precious vacation days are lost. The cost is spending time with family in India. At least if they’re in India when this happens they’re getting time with family.
3. Many employers have offices in India where employees can continue working. This is not the case in a third country necessarily.
Just adding an immigrant perspective here, that’s all. Also my question was around whether anything can be done legally to remove these travel restrictions or ease them.
For eg. I find the idea that with an ongoing AoS application leaving = abandoning totally arbitrary and absurd. A person pending AoS may have emergency travel with no intent to abandon AoS and there’s little reason why that difference can’t be accommodated in the process.
It is permissible to go from Fjii to India and then back to Fiji to pick the visa if you are delayed.
What you are discussing are things the government should do to change the law to accommodate reality. I agree with these things but I am dealing with the existing reality.
I have lots of ideas about how things should be fixed to be better and maybe the 2 of us could write a big book about all that, but really it doesn't matter until we are made King.
Totally fair. From your perspective, I see what you’re saying. I wasn’t so much asking whether you think it should be changed. I was asking whether it even can be changed (based on how these restrictions are entangled in the system) without a big overhaul.
Like, is a band-aid fix even possible to address long travel restrictions? That was what I was asking. My apologies if that was lost in my earlier comments.
The travel restrictions are among the most burdensome aspects of the visa-life in the US. Given how protracted processing can be, you can be stuck for months. Robert, is there a reasonable way to disentangle these travel restrictions from visa processing and provide relief to immigrants or is the whole thing just baked into the way immigration works? Love your newsletters, thank you so much for writing them!
If a person is seeking a visa, like an H-1B, one way to mitigate is not to get the visa at a US consulate in India. The US consulates in India are very bad on 221g delays whereas third country processing can often be easier. So you make a trip to a third country and get the visa stamped. Some Indians have gone to the US consulate in Fiji - there is no entry requirement for Indian citizens and a nice vacation.
While this is undoubtedly a pragmatic option, as a former visa holder, here’s why Indians hesitate to do this.
The single biggest worry is getting stuck in a third country. Everything else I say flows from this concern -
1. They worry about the expense and stress involved in an uncertain, extended stay at a random place.
2. In case of extended processing, precious vacation days are lost. The cost is spending time with family in India. At least if they’re in India when this happens they’re getting time with family.
3. Many employers have offices in India where employees can continue working. This is not the case in a third country necessarily.
Just adding an immigrant perspective here, that’s all. Also my question was around whether anything can be done legally to remove these travel restrictions or ease them.
For eg. I find the idea that with an ongoing AoS application leaving = abandoning totally arbitrary and absurd. A person pending AoS may have emergency travel with no intent to abandon AoS and there’s little reason why that difference can’t be accommodated in the process.
It is permissible to go from Fjii to India and then back to Fiji to pick the visa if you are delayed.
What you are discussing are things the government should do to change the law to accommodate reality. I agree with these things but I am dealing with the existing reality.
I have lots of ideas about how things should be fixed to be better and maybe the 2 of us could write a big book about all that, but really it doesn't matter until we are made King.
In the meantime we have actual reality.
Totally fair. From your perspective, I see what you’re saying. I wasn’t so much asking whether you think it should be changed. I was asking whether it even can be changed (based on how these restrictions are entangled in the system) without a big overhaul.
Like, is a band-aid fix even possible to address long travel restrictions? That was what I was asking. My apologies if that was lost in my earlier comments.