Senate Democrats Urge State Department to Speed up Clearing Student Visa Backlog

Senate Democrats Urge State Department to Speed up Clearing Student Visa Backlog
Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivers remarks on the release of the 2021 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report at the State Department in Washington, DC on July 1, 2021. Ken Cedeno/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Bill Pan
Bill Pan
Reporter
|Updated:

A group of 24 Senate Democrats are calling on the U.S. Department of State to “do everything it can” to expedite the student visa process, so that international students may begin their studies in the United States before the new academic year begins.

In a letter (pdf) to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the senators suggested that the department should increase staffing and work hours, maximize use of virtual interviews, and provide more flexibility in order to speed up clearing the backlog of student visa requests.
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