The US Consulate in Kolkata announces major updates to B1/B2 visas.
In a major update to visitor visas, the U.S. Consulate in Kolkata has announced that it will begin offering priority slots to parents aged 50 and above who want to visit their children who are legally residing in the United States. “We are helping shorten wait times for qualified travelers with established connections and verified purposes,” the announcement said. The consulate called it “American family values first.”The Consulate in Kolkata also announced a new visa arrangement system for verified business travelers. “The Kolkata Consulate is rolling out a new visa arrangement system that puts legitimate business travelers at the front. Support trade, investment, and economic growth between the United States and India: because when business thrives, America thrives,” they declared.B1/B2 visa applicants have recently started seeing higher rejection rates as visa experts have observed that visa officers emphasize on making double sure that these tourist or business visa applicants have closer ties to India and that they will not settle in the United States.Ahead of the official announcement, visa expert Priyesh Sharma said that these new categories will only appear on accounts selected from the Kolkata embassy/consulate. Sharma said the consulate has opened four new categories under B1/B2:
- Business Professionals (conditions apply)
- Parents visit children with legal status (conditions apply)
- General Tours and Travel (open to all applicants with no rejection record)
- Recent visa refusal (24 months)
“I can’t really say what is the motivation behind this, if it will soon be applied to all other consulates/embassies, but I think this will be used as a key data set to manage allocation of large number of application slots and their administrative tasks. It is not that when you apply for a new visa, the officials are not aware of your previous rejections, but by introducing a category, they will only separate new visas from duplicate visas and maybe even have different internal SOPs for people who have past rejections,” Sharma said.
