The US mission to India released over 1,00,000 appointments for H&L visas for workers and their families on Friday. The appointments come at a time when there is a high demand for employment-based visas. Additionally, the US mission to India said that the decision has been taken considering the people who haven’t been able to come home and see their family since the pandemic started.

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“In response to high demand for employment-based visas, the US Mission to India recently released over 100,000 appointments for H&L workers and their families. Thousands of applicants have already booked their appointments and the wait time for both interview waiver and first-time appointments has been cut in half throughout Mission India,” the US Embassy in India tweeted.

Foreign minister S Jaishankar had raised the issue of visa delays with US secretary of state Antony Blinken last month.

In the first nine months of 2022, the US mission to India has already processed over 160,000 H&L visas, it further informed. As of Friday, the wait times for first-time applicants for B1 and B2 visas were 884 days in Delhi and 872 in Mumbai, edging closer to 2.5 years.

The L-1 and H-1B are among the most popular non-immigrant work visas in the US. While L-1 is better suited for those working for multinational corporations, the H-1B visa finds more use for those intending to work for US businesses and want more job flexibility.