Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are discussing, well what appears to be, it is kind of said offhand but it looks like it is a pretty major policy change with regard to US Visa interviews. So these are interviews occurring at State Department, basically Embassies and Consulates abroad, outside of the United States under the auspices of the US State Department. This came from an Update on Visa Services from state.gov and it is under: Briefings for Press Centers: Update on Visa Services. I will go ahead and stick this up there. This was basically almost like a podcast the Department of State did where they were talking about some information regarding processing of visas, and then there was this quote. Quoting: "Finally, I'll mention staffing. The Department is actively engaged in increasing the number of Consular Officers who are overseas adjudicating visas." that's certainly good news, just on that front alone, quoting further: "We've doubled Consular Officer hiring this year from last year, and we have a growing team of experience adjudicators who are supporting high-demand posts by," and this is key, "remotely adjudicating Visa cases." Quoting further: "And that lets posts overseas have more time to interview applicants who must come in in person." I can't tell you how big a deal this is. Let me quote that again. "We've doubled Consular Officer hiring this year, from last year and we have a growing team of experienced adjudicators who are supporting high demand posts by remotely adjudicating Visa cases." 

I will try to get a link up in the description below on this if you want to have a look at that. There's a lot of info there. Frankly a lot of is pretty wonkish, I don't know if most people are going to really care but it is that "supporting high demand posts by remotely adjudicating Visa cases". I mean that can only mean one thing. We are talking zoom interviews with respect to Visa cases. Exactly what this means remains to be seen but that is a major sea change within the Immigration apparatus, if that is indeed what we are seeing. I personally have my issues with it especially with respect to the Immigrant Visa categories and I am going to do a video on that just sort of on its own to kind of dive into kind of what I think on it on just sort of a personal level if you will. 

But the long story short is and what to take away from this video is if we start seeing remotely conducted Visa interviews, I don't even care what context even if it is just Non-Immigrant Visas, whatever, that will have a tremendous impact on the way we process cases not only through the US Embassy here in Bangkok but around the world and throughout this region. That would change things tremendously. If nothing else, if only a certain subcategory of visas were doing this but it was a high volume sub-category of visas that were doing sort of zoom interviews for their visa interview, it would free up a lot of resources associated with other Visa categories like Immigrant Visas for example or even employment-based visas, things like this. That would have a major impact on Consular processing, of that there is no doubt. So this is some interesting stuff kind of said, I won't say flippantly, but just kind of mentioned off hand in this State Department Announcement and yeah that is something that will have a tremendous overall impact on Consular processing of Visa cases in the coming months and years.