More Indians Traveling To US Than At Any Other Time In History

NEW DELHI (ANI) – US Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, Rena Bitter on February 22 during her ongoing visit to India highlighted the ‘explosion’ in travel between India and the US. She is in India on consular matters.

“More Indians can travel to the United States than at any other time in our history. Last year, this mission adjudicated 1.4 million visas, the most in many, many years. We’ve made tremendous progress. There is no wait time in virtually every category of visas that we issue. There is a wait time for some travelers, but there are mechanisms for being able to expedite humanitarian cases, and for being able to expedite business visas. But beyond that, in the last year, we have reduced wait times by 75%. And the way that we have done that is by ensuring that we have. It is important to us in Washington, again, because this bilateral relationship is so important,” she pointed out.

The US Consular Team in India processed a record 1.4 million US visas in 2023, which is higher than ever, and has brought down the visitor visa appointment wait times by 75 percent.

The US Embassy and Consulates in India said that Indians now represent one out of every ten US visa applicants around the world.

Visitor visas (B1/B2) have rebounded to represent the second-highest number of applications in the US Mission’s history — over 7,00,000.

Among the specific states, Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, and Chennai are the top four student visa processing posts in the world. This has made Indian students the largest group of international graduate students in the US. They make up more than a quarter of the over one million foreign students studying in the United States.