In June 2023 during India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to USA, he indicated that soon Indian citizens will be able to renew/revalidate their H1b visas in USA. Even US Department of State in an interview during the beginning of the year 2023 announced that they are going to start a pilot program to issues H1b stamping in USA, which used to go by the name visa revalidation program. Most likely such a revalidation pilot program for H1b stamping in USA should start by end of year 2023.
Earlier the visa revalidation was very popular with H-1b and L-1 non-immigrant visa holders. It started around the year 1987 for diplomats and benefits of such revalidation was extended to other visa holders including H1b and L-1 visa holders. Not only H1b visa holders, even their H4 dependents were eligible to revalidate or get their H4 stamping in USA. Requirement for H1b revalidation was that the applicant should have had a H1b visa which is going to expire in sixty days or expired within one year of applying for revalidation within USA. If they qualified under this criterion, the applicants had to send their visa application with passport to Department of State and within a month you will get the passport with visa stamping. Instead of the name of the consulate listed in the consular post, it will list Department of State as the issuing post. Such revalidation benefit was under chopping block after September 11, 2001 terrorist attack and by the year 2004 there were requirements for biometrics and Department of State felt this is possible only in US consular posts.
The new program for revalidation should have some similar requirements. Stay tuned in for more updates. This will be such a great benefit. But one should understand under the current visa regime, even when you go for stamping abroad is not as strict it used to be. If you work for an established company, then there are no issues at all with stamping. The Dropbox provision also further eases the whole visa process. There are some 221gs issued for some companies which don’t have a good track record and consulate would like to get some additional documentation before they issue the visa. Ultimately one should get the visa unless there are some serious issues the consulate foresees. You can go through one of my blogs where I have written about 221gs on options available to you.
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