General News of Saturday, 22 October 2022

Source: classfmonline.com

Wait time for non-immigrant US visa appointments now less than 6 months

The US embassy in Ghana has announced a reduction in wait time for non-immigrant visa appointments. Applicants will now have to wait for less than six months for visa appointments. Speaking in a video, posted on the embassy’s YouTube page, Friday, 21 October 2022, on updates on the visa processes, the US ambassador to Ghana, Virginia Palmer explained: “The current wait time for non-immigrant visa appointments at the US embassy is now less than six months. “That’s down from two and half years when I arrived earlier this year. That’s still too long but we are still taking steps to continue to reduce wait times, particularly for renewal,” she said. Touching on student visas, Ms Palmer, disclosed the embassy has “worked to ensure that students got accelerated processing to facilitate their education before the start of classes.” She indicated that the embassy has processed 70 per cent more student visas compared to the embassy’s previous record. “We processed a record 7,000 student visa cases in the last 12 months alone. That’s nearly 70 per cent more than our previous record.” She also revealed that in the past year, the embassy has processed a total of 32,000 visa applications. She assured that efforts are being made to reduce the backlog of visa applications. “You can be assured that reducing wait times for immigrant visas is very much on our minds, so we’ll keep working to reduce the backlogs” the US ambassador added.