Some H-1B visa holders may soon be eligible to renew their visas without being obliged to leave the country after the US State Department has announced that it is looking forward to further easing these visa procedures.
According to an announcement provided by Mint, all employees working in the United States through the H-1B and L-1 visa programs will soon be eligible to renew their status domestically, following the pilot program that was introduced by the State Department earlier this year, VisaGuide.World reports.
However, despite the fact that the new changes will bring significant benefits to their holders, it has still not been confirmed how many renewal applicants the new pilot program is eligible to accommodate.
Recently, in a report provided by Bloomberg, the deputy assistant secretary for visa services in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, Julie Stufft, considered that restoring stateside visa renewals will reduce the workload of consular offices in other countries and will also minimize the workload of consular offices.
“We all saw during the pandemic how difficult it was for these people to return to their home country and often not be able to get visa appointments to come back to their home, the United States. That’s what we’re trying to address initially with this,” she pointed out in this regard.
Stufft emphasized the fact that the stateside renewal will be eligible to all H and L visa holders and could be further expanded.
The US States Department has been urged many times to add the domestic renewal option by business groups and immigration lawyers as part of efforts to further ease visa procedures for foreign workers.
International workers who travel abroad are not eligible to enter again in the United States if they don’t have valid visa stamps. The spread of the Coronavirus, among others, also led to long wait times for appointments during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving a large number of workers stuck outside, thus bringing new difficulties for employers.
However, the new changes are expected to have a positive effect and further facilitate visa procedures for workers and employers.
In this regard, the director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Shev Dalal-Dheini, while supporting the recent changes, said that the need for such a step to be taken became even more apparent with the delays in visa processing, after, according to her, a large number of people were left in limbo.
The Person in Specialty Visa, also known as an H-1B visa, permits US employers to bring international workers engaged in specific fields such as accountants, professors, IT specialists, lawyers, etc., to the US in order to work there and thus contribute in filling out labour shortages.
At the same time, L-1 Visa is a US temporary work visa which permits internationals to work in the US for a period of three months to five years.
The post US Permit Some H-1B & L-1 Visa Holders to Renew Their Visas Without Leaving the Country appeared first on VisaGuide.World.
