Student visa delays?
 

I've been getting some reports from friends in China and Hong Kong of massive delays in interviews for F1 visas. For example, in Beijing, the next available appointment is sometime in December for the school year starting this August (the US embassy and consulates evacuated their staff during the height of coronavirus in Asia and it created a massive backlog).

I was curious if people are seeing similar delays with student visas for kids coming from the UK to study in the US? Probably not as many overall as there are Chinese students coming to the United States, but was wondering if the embassy is having similar problems in London.

Re: Student visa delays?
 

There is a (useless) section on students on the NIV section of the London consulate website: https://uk.usembassy.gov/information...d-19-outbreak/

In essence, there are no visa appointments for students in the UK right now and for the foreseeable. There is no information on when that might change.

There are in general no non-immigrant visas being issued in London right now and will not be for quite a while. If I had to take a guess, resumption of services will coincide with the current executive order banning most forms of migration expiring - so at the end of December (if it is not extended), unless the US decides it wants tourists from the UK and EU sooner than that. The only cases in which NIVs are being issued are where there is a national interest in doing so - therefore you must be able to justify why you would need an expedited appointment.

There are two vectors of effect here though - the one that affects students is that people that have been in the UK in the last 14 days may not travel to the U.S., hence there is probably a presumption on the part of the consulate that UKCs do not really need visas right now given they can't use them without stopping over in a non-banned country like Turkey. The proclamation that explicitly closes consulates has ended.

Re: Student visa delays?
 

Re: Student visa delays?
 

I could see a covid related argument for not bringing in a load of fresh international students but kicking out existing students seems very heavy handed.

Re: Student visa delays?
 

Yeah, a savage move.

Re: Student visa delays?
 

That is brutal. Because they are not just kicking them out, which would almost-kinda have some logic to it, if it were restricted to issuance of new visas. But they are saying students can come in IF they attend in-person classes. I see -- which will be safe to do by what sorcery?? If the current state of the country is anything to go by, the local students will render campuses hot-spots before Thanksgiving.

This is a very sad state of affairs, where the federal government is trying to force the hands of universities across the country. Honestly, all foreign students should stay home/go elsewhere. You will not be safe here.

Re: Student visa delays?
 

It is especially hard for F1 students whose families live and work here on a non-immigrant visa. Some of them will have gone to school here and lived here the majority of their lives so they do not necessarily have ties or family in their homeland. I know they will eventually have to leave (unless they find some other way to stay) but it is very sudden and very brutal. I gather their may be a reprieve and colleges are trying to negotiate something on behalf of their international students.

Re: Student visa delays?
 

Yup. I alerted my company's HR to exactly this possibility today. It would be very easy to overlook these, especially if the company lawyers weren't involved in securing them.

Re: Student visa delays?
 

Has it ever been possible to get a Student Visa for online classes?

Re: Student visa delays?
 

No, in normal times the F-1 visa only covers full-time on-campus courses. However, the government had made an exception for Spring 2020 as pretty much all schools moved to online classes due to the current situation. Now, they're canceling that exception even though a lot of schools are considering continuing with online instruction in Fall 2020. This means that international students won't be able to get visas for the fall semester and will need to do the online courses from their home countries. However, that prevents us from using all other facilities that the universities provide, e.g. libraries, labs, etc.

Also, if the situation gets worse and schools need to close their campuses again, international students will have to leave the country immediately.

Re: Student visa delays?
 

I'm not really sure why people think this isn't appropriate.

The students in question were given a visa for a specific purpose, if they are no longer able to follow that purpose, then they should return to their home country The while point of the F1 is that it is not for anything other than studying.

It's the same as someone on an H1B that gets terminated. Your purpose for being in the US is gone, you're gone.

Re: Student visa delays?
 

Because it essentially prevents any and all international students to study in the US. This doesn't only affect undergraduate students. Let's say you're a PhD student and your visa becomes invalid because the campus has to close, you have to leave the country and your work, even if you're in the middle of it, and are risking losing your funding.

Re: Student visa delays?
 

Well son of a friend of mine was attending Uni in Florida and they closed the campus so he came back to Colorado, saw no point him staying there when his course was switched to on line. Presumably they could apply to COS to B if they have things to clear up?

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I think it may have been reasonable to stop issuing new student visas for wholly-online courses. But what about the HUGE number of people who already have established lives here? Yes, an F-1 is a non-immigrant visa, so holders should not have settled in for a permanent stay, but if you have a 4-5 year degree program, you have probably made long term arrangements (e.g.,cell phone contract, lease, etc.). As we see on BE all the time, termination on an employment-based visa turns lives upside down. And now it's going to happen en masse to young people across the country?? And then what -- they have invested a bunch of time and money to get a partial degree? To realize their investment, they need to continue to study online from a different country/time zone? How is that possibly a satisfactory learning environment?

But that's not even really the point. Losing international students is going to cripple universities. The federal government is using it as a big stick to force them to return to campus. This was already a fraught question, where administrations have been trying to balance the needs of their students, faculty, and broader community. To have the federal government come barging in with this hard line, all that care and planning is out the window.

And all the while, the country is in free-fall, infection-wise. Great time to be agitating for a return to campus...

Re: Student visa delays?
 

Completely agree with your point about this forcing universities to open and remain open. If you look through Trump's twitter feed, he's very adamant about schools being open in the fall.