Dubai: The technical glitch that paralysed US missions around the world, including in the UAE, in issuing non-immigrant visas and US passports has now been fully resolved and operations are now back to normal.
Specialists worked round-the-clock for weeks to fix a hardware failure that caused the technical glitch that affected applications after June 8. The glitch prevented the visa system from processing and transmitting necessary security-related biometric data checks.
According to the official statement of the US Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs on Friday (June 26), “All visa-issuing embassies and consulates are now back online. We are scheduling visa interviews and issuing non-immigrant and immigrant visas.”
The statement added that the bureau issued more than 300,000 non-immigrant visas this week after two-thirds of their posts worldwide were reconnected. They hope to clear the backlog by next week as consular staff will work overtime this weekend.
“We deeply regret the inconvenience to travelers who are waiting for visas, as well as their families and US businesses that have been affected,” the statement read.
Between June 9 and June 19, 335,000 visas that ordinarily would have been printed were stuck in clearance. Of these, nearly 300,000 have now been printed.
This was what happened to Indian expatriates C.G. and his wife who were due to travel to the states on a cruise along with 50 other families on July 3.
C.G. said embassy officials told him that their visas had been approved but “because of the technical issues, they could not print the visas”.
C.G. breathed a sigh of relief when he received a text message from the US consulate. Had the issue not been resolved, he said he would have lost Dh80,000 to cancel the trips as rebooking was not an option.
“The US Consulate sent us a message to submit our passports on Sunday by 2pm. This is a general message sent out to all the people,” C.G. told Gulf News.
While the non-immigrant visa issue has been fixed, the bureau is still experiencing problems with some online immigrant visa application forms but specialists are working round-the-clock to correct the issue.
Overseas passport applications are being processed. There have been delays in some cases, but posts overseas are able to issue emergency passports in urgent cases.
For more information, the embassy in Abu Dhabi and consulate-general in Dubai can be reached by calling the contact centre at 04-376-8311.
