The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs experienced a major technical failure with its visa issuance system a few days ago that has severely restricted its ability to issue all types of visas at the U.S. consulates abroad. The government has not released a precise date of the failure, but it has been going on at least since this past weekend. The unprecedented system-wide problem has affected nonimmigrant visas (employment, visitor, etc.) and immigrant visas for all U.S. consulates worldwide. The government announced it is working to gradually restore the system but consulates worldwide are reporting that they have been forced to work at significantly reduced capacity and have also been instructed to give priority to immigrant visa applications. This outage could affect thousands of nonimmigrant visa applications worldwide and result in a sizable backlog of temporary employment and visitor visa applications.
Many foreign nationals who have already applied for temporary visas and submitted their applications will likely face delays and may need to budget some extra wait time abroad. Those who have not yet applied but are considering applying for temporary visas are strongly advised to postpone travel until the system is completely restored and existing visa backlog is cleared.