Despite the slew of recent US visa application processing initiatives that had reduced visa interview wait times and increased the amount of visas processed in China, as well as the US increased efforts to expand membership of qualified countries under the Visa Waiver Program via ESTA application, the US has recently announced that it did not make changes on its policy towards issuing visas to Indian students.
US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland stated during her daily news conference that the US State Department has not made any changes with regards to their policy in the way American visa applicants are interviewed.
Ms. Nuland just clarified that the US State Department is just making sure of the authenticity and legitimacy of the sponsoring organizations’ purpose and their ability of bringing Indian students over to educate them rather than to put them to work or for other purposes.
Ms. Nuland confirms that the recent initiative of opening community colleges in India on the pattern of those in the US is going to be supported by the United States.
Just last week, education ministers of four Indian States namely Punjab, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir had made a visit on several US cities. This was done in order to have a firsthand experience of the community colleges in the US.
Ms. Nuland revealed that the US had been working with the Indian side to flesh out the initiative that was agreed between the President and India’s prime minister through the US Education Bureau. And Ms. Nuland made an assurance that the US State Department is going to be responsible for the visa issuance for the various folks studying in the United States.
Meanwhile, it has been making plans to file a formal complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the United States over its visa policies for a while.
India’s plans of taking the United States to the WTO over its visa policies had come as Infosys had become under investigation by the U.S. authorities with regards to whether they had abused a temporary business visa program in getting around difficulties in securing visas for long-term work.
