This is important news.


The State department have confirmed that visas can be issued (exceptions can be granted) for people applying for immigrant visas (such as DV) in countries that are affected by the regional 14 day restrictions.

In practical terms that means the impact of the regional bans is greatly reduced, although it still might affect people travelling through those areas during activation trips – that remains to be clarified.

So for people in some embassies, this should be helpful news.

Now – it is too early to celebrate and to assume that it will be full speed ahead. We can see that many embassies are working at reduced capacity as the May 2NLs were disappointingly low.

I am also not seeing a flood of “ready for scheduling” notices, which to me suggests that the KCC document processing is still a problem. Without some rapid movement there we will see a frustrating period for people trying to get their documents processed. It is ESSENTIAL to submit documents ASAP whether you have been asked or not. Don’t bother asking me – that will be my answer!

The lack of documents processed will probably cause fast progression of the VB numbers, but that will just increase the confusion and unfairness as it will become a lottery of sorts to see who has their documents processed, who gets scheduled and so on.

I HOPE the systemic capacity issue can be addressed, but we are running low on remaining time – with only 4 months of interviews yet to be announced.

So – a good news/bad news type of update today….

Here is the State Dept announcement for those that want to read it.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/updates-to-national-interest-exceptions-for-regional-covid-proclamations.html