Citizens of Afghanistan planning to apply for a United States Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) will be subject to an easier application process after the US authorities have announced that they plan to facilitate the Afghan Special Immigrant visa process.
Such an announcement has been confirmed through a joint statement of the US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken as well as the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, VisaGuide.World reports.
The Special Immigrant Visa program is eligible for all persons who worked in the US Armed Forces or under the Chief of Mission authority as a translator or interpreter in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Up to this point, all persons who planned to request such a visa were required to send a separate petition to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services following a 14-step process. Removing such a step means the process will be completed entirely under the US Department of State.
“This new streamlined process, which is part of our ongoing efforts to make the program more efficient, will help to eliminate barriers for applicants and reduce application times,” Blinken and Mayorkas pointed out in this regard in a joint statement.Previously, the application process for such a visa took about three years, while applicants were required to have received their visas before they could move into the United States.
In this regard, the Voice of America reported that a senior US official estimated that easing the administrative work necessary to grant a visa will “shave about a month off of the adjudication time … or potentially more. However, “more importantly,” the official said, the single form will simplify things on the other side of the desk. “It’ll be a lot easier for the applicants as well.”According to officials from the Biden Administration, there were over 74,000 applicants in the SIV pipeline during the time of the announcement. At the same time, Blinken and Mayorkas began their speech by declaring that the United States continues to show its commitment to thousands of brave citizens from Afghanistan who stood side-by-side with the US over the course of the past two decades. In addition, according to the US authorities, the new application process will ease the delivery of safety to all persons who have been promised refuge. The joint statement by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas was published on July 18.