US Embassy Reduces Visa Appointment Wait Time To Less Than 6 Months

The US Embassy in Accra says the wait time for nonimmigrant visa appointments has been reduced to less than six months.

In a prerecorded video, the US Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Virginia Palmer made this announcement.

She said the embassy is working to further reduce it.

“The current wait time for nonimmigrant visa appointments at the US embassy is now less than 6 months. That’s down from nearly two and a half years when I arrived earlier this year. That’s still too long but we are taking steps to continue to reduce wait times, particularly for renewals”, she said.

Additionally, she said student visa appointments have been expedited and increased by 70% in the last year.

“We’ve also worked hard to ensure that students get expedited visa appointments before the start of classes this year and we’ve processed a record 7, 000 student visa cases in the last twelve months alone. That is seventy per cent more than our previous record.

“In total, we’ve processed over 32,000 visa applications in the past year. We are continuing to work to reduce the backlog and wait times.”

Earlier in the year, Hiplife artiste Kwame A Plus led advocacy for the embassy to expedite visa applications, particularly spousal visas.

The advocacy cited the US immigration laws which prioritise visas for citizens and their immediate relatives.

However, H.E. Palmer’s announcement gave no update about immigrant visas except to say that “reducing wait time for immigrant visas is very much on our minds”.

Ghanaians were hit by long visa wait times following applications to the embassy.

Applicants were scheduled for interviews in at least two years.

Those who could not wait were compelled to seek visas in neighbouring countries like Liberia.

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini