The Bureau of Consular Affairs reports that 165 posts, representing more than 85 percent of our nonimmigrant visa demand worldwide, are now online and issuing visas.
Posts overseas issued more than 82,000 visas on June 24.
Posts overseas have issued more than 238,000
non-immigrant visas this week. For context, if systems had been operating
normally, posts would have issued approximately 540,000 visas since the outage
started.
We will continue to bring additional posts
online until connectivity with all posts is restored. All posts worldwide are
now scheduling interviews with applicants, including with those who applied
after the systems problems began on June 9.
We deeply regret the inconvenience to
travelers who are waiting for visas, as well as their families and U.S.
businesses that have been affected.
· We continue to post updates to our website,
travel.state.gov.
Q: Reports indicate that your backlog is 700,000 visas. Is this
accurate?
· No. While there is a large backlog of cases to clear, it never
approached that level, and we have already made good progress issuing those
visas. Many posts are working overtime this week and during the upcoming
weekend, and we expect to eliminate the backlog in a week or less.
Q: How old is this equipment? And does the age of the equipment and the need to
have so many repairs to the hardware mean that this equipment should have been
replaced? Is this a funding issue at the base of it?
The hardware that impacted the biometrics system is several
years old. The Department was working to move the biometrics system off of this
hardware.
The operational requirements to keep this database running for
domestic and overseas passport and visa issuances caused delays in upgrading
the database according to our planned maintenance schedule.
We have been working to upgrade our systems over the past year.
We will move ahead with planned migration and systems upgrades
as soon as we fully restore service.
Q: How did you restore service?
We restored service using a redundant, secondary backup system
and other sources. That data allowed us to begin to re-connect posts to the
affected portion of the system and synchronize biometric data. This system is
running on newer hardware, and has a synchronized standby system in a different
Department data center.
In parallel, we are continuing to restore data from backups and
overseas post databases. This process is ongoing.
Q: Do you know whether this is equipment that was acquired
directly by the State Department, or was this acquired through a third-party
contractor?
The equipment was acquired by the Department of State.
Q: What does this mean for travelers seeking visas?
All posts are now interviewing applicants. Please check the
website of the nearest embassy or consulate for interview appointment
availability and up-to-date messages.
Q: How many people were affected by this outage?
During the past two weeks, consular sections have continued to
interview travelers who applied June 8 or earlier. Those posts reconnected to
our system are now issuing visas for those applicants.
Q: How are cases being prioritized?
We continue to facilitate urgent cases for those individuals who
need to travel imminently, and will continue to do so until the systems are
normal.
We apologize to travelers and recognize that this has caused
hardship to some individuals waiting for visas as well as families and
employers.
Q: What about the foreign agricultural workers (H2A visa holders?)
More than 2,500 temporary or seasonal workers have been issued
new visas in Mexico since last week.
We will continue to prioritize H-2 applicants as our systems
return to normal, and issue as many approved cases as possible. However, we
will not be able to process these as quickly as we typically do until our
systems are functioning normally. We continue to ask that any employers with
urgent needs contact the post which is processing their applicants and we will
do everything we can to facilitate the cases.
We are no longer asking CBP to provide Port of Entry waivers, as
we have now begun issuing visas at border posts.
Visa applicants, including agricultural workers, who have not
received a visa should not report to the border. Please contact the nearest
embassy or consulate.
Q: What about domestic passports?
Domestic passport operations are functioning, with some processing
delays.
The technical problems have affected the intake of some mailed
applications and same-day service at our passport agencies; however, we
continue to issue routine and expedited passports to U.S. citizens for all
overseas travel needs.
Q: What about overseas passports?
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.
