U.S. Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Addressing the issues of visa backlogs, and recalling President Joe Biden’s order to reduce the visa time for Indians, the Ambassador of the United States to India, Eric Garcetti has said that the challenge is heard “loud and clear” and added that he is proud of the work done in just one year to reduce the visa wait time by three quarters.
In an interview with ANI, Mr. Garcetti said, “I am very proud of the work we have done in just one year to reduce the visa wait time by three quarters and to have no visa wait time in any of the categories except for first-time tourist visa which is down 75%.”
He highlighted how at the same time, the U.S. has “increased the number of visas with the same number of people by 60% in a single year, so we are hearing that challenge loud and clear”.
“We are excited about the number of Indians who want to come for reasons from business to students to even immigrant visas people becoming citizens…” Mr. Garcetti said.
In March, Mr. Garcetti told ANI that President Joe Biden told him to bring down the visa times in India, adding that it was the first instance that an ambassador was told to look into something like this in any country.
Mr. Garcetti underscored that a part of the green card backlog issue is a legislative problem and said that it is what Congress will have to address. However, he highlighted that the number of visas that have been adjudicated has brought down the waiting time by 75%.
The envoy had said, “Now, part of this is a legislative problem that Congress will have to address on the whether it’s the number of legal immigrants, the number of green cards, or the number of people who can become citizens. There’s just limits on that. Like any country, I’m sure there’s limits here, too. And that is frustrating for Indians, I think, because there’s so many Indians who want to come to America. And that’s a great part of our news, by the way. Second only to Mexicans, where Indian visas last year, the biggest number of students double the second biggest.”
“Last year, over 245,000 student visas came from India. Number one in adoptions, number one in all these categories that show 1.4 billion people, a lot of them would love to come to America. And so it’s a good problem to have. But a couple of things were changing…,” he said, on being asked about the green card backlog issue, and why there are mostly Indians who are on the backlog.
Further, on being asked if U.S. has similar plans just like Australia to launch the foreign branch campus of universities here in India, Mr. Garcetti said, “Absolutely, it’s my goal to get as many Americans to India as we are seeing Indians come to America…You will see announcements in the coming years of dozens of U.S. campuses”.
“We will have joint campuses, and joint programmes here; one Arizona State University announced that there are going to be in more than 10 different campuses around India. To me, this is what the future is about,” he said.
“Indians know more about the U.S. and the U.S. knows more about Indians, taking the world where we can be multiplicative as India times the U.S., I think the relationship is not just India plus the U.S.,” the envoy added.
Notably, Australia’s Deakin University earlier inaugurated its branch campus in GIFT City, Gujarat.
In January this year, Vice Chancellor of Australia’s Deakin University Iain Martin met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gandhinagar, where they had a productive discussion on enhancing collaboration between government and academic institutions about cybersecurity. In a post on X, the Prime Minister welcomed Deakin University to collaborate with Indian universities to promote research and innovation.