There has been big head lines few weeks back on all conventional news and local news papers about the US putting pause or temporary halt on the study visas for students. I have wrote a small blog raising questions and concerned and look at it with some doubts. This is because there was no mentioning of any country specifically. The reasons give for that was checking the Social media of the applicants in more details. After reading an article at multiple sites, I thought that nothing adds up here the news are very vague. But for sure it has created panic among many aspirants.
I clearly remember talking to one of my young client who is in process of applying for the visiting visa for entire family, she told me that now since no students visas are given we should get the visiting visa dates early. I told her clearly that I didn’t see any notification on the travelstate.gov or ustraveldocs (website of visa) websites that says so.
If any legitimate government take decision in democracy there must be a notification or some sort of written format available on the website.
Having said that here are the actual updates:
- A notification is issues on 9th June 2025 by government of United States that Nationals of some countries will not be given visa or will be given limited visas.
- The reason for limiting this was given as threat to public safety.
- The interesting part of the entire notification is the nationals of those countries can apply for visa but there is no guarantee that they will get visa or not or even if they have visas will the allow to enter to USA or not. This may be due to allowing some types of visas are being issued to these nationals also.
Mainly there are two type of suspensions
a. Full suspension
b. Partial suspension
Full suspension of the countries are: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen for all nonimmigrant and immigrant visa categories
Partial suspension of the countries are: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
In partial suspension B1/B2 (Business or leisure), F (full time students), J (Exchange visitor) and M type of visa.
The exceptions in these visa can be found at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/suspension-of-visa-issuance-to-foreign-nationals-to-protect-the-united-states-from-foreign-terrorists-and-other-national-security-and-public-safety-threats.html
so the news that Indian student’s visa is on halt and new visa are not being issues seems not true.
Hiren Thaker- An independent student counsellor and visa expert