The affected interviews are these scheduled on or after 15 December, and candidates are being instructed to reschedule their visa interviews.
In keeping with a number of experiences, the cancellations are linked to the rollout of the brand new coverage, which requires consular officers to evaluation candidates’ on-line presence, together with their social media exercise.
This extra requirement has lowered the variety of appointments accessible, inflicting vital inconvenience for candidates who had deliberate their journey and visa processing months prematurely.
US enterprise immigration lawyer James Hollis voiced his frustration on LinkedIn, criticising each the timing and the affect of the coverage change, which coincides with the vacation interval when many Indian nationals return residence to finish visa formalities.
“I’m shaking my head concerning the experiences popping out about H-1B visa appointment cancellations in India. The experiences are that there have been a big variety of appointments cancelled, and candidates have been directed to reschedule the visa interview side of the appointment, with ASC appointments initially remaining the identical. The affected appointments are on or after 15 December 2025, and candidates who’re impacted are receiving emails from the submit indicating that they need to reschedule,” Hollis wrote.
He added, “The reasoning for the cancellations is that the brand new social media vetting coverage requires implementation time and evaluation time for the posts, and the posts have needed to scale back their accessible appointments to accommodate the change.”
Anshuman Jha, an AI marketing consultant, additionally highlighted the implications of the coverage shift for H-1B candidates. Writing on LinkedIn, he stated, “H-1B visa candidates face new social media screening. A significant shift for international expertise mobility: beginning 15 December, all H-1B and H-4 candidates should make their social media accounts public for evaluation.”
The change highlights the rising significance of managing one’s digital footprint, significantly for Indian candidates, who comprise the vast majority of H-1B visa recipients.
Pamela Rangel, a enterprise immigration lawyer, equally famous that the State Division is increasing social media vetting to H-1B candidates from mid-December, including additional complexity to an already unpredictable visa stamping course of.
The US State Division has just lately confirmed that each one H-1B employees and their H-4 dependents can be topic to social media screening as of 15 December. Candidates can be required to change their social media accounts to “public” settings to permit scrutiny.
Underneath the up to date guidelines, candidates should additionally disclose usernames or IDs used on platforms akin to Fb, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and others, even when these accounts haven’t been lively previously 5 years.
The division reiterated that “each visa adjudication is a nationwide safety resolution” and burdened {that a} US visa is “a privilege, not a proper”.
In the meantime, the Trump administration has additionally introduced modifications to Employment Authorisation Paperwork (EADs), decreasing their validity from 5 years to 18 months for sure classes.
This transformation will take impact on 5 December 2025 and can apply to teams together with refugees and people with pending functions for adjustment of standing beneath Part 245 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
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