Visitors’ visas issued by US embassy continue to fall

Jul 28, 2019 News

The number of visitors’ visas issued by the US Embassy in Kingston has continued to be fewer and fewer.
Over the last 12 months, between July 2018 and June 2019, figures from the US Department of State indicated that 4,401 non-immigrants visas were issued (B1/B2 category).
For the similar period the previous 12 months, 5,842 visas were issued.
While the US Embassy in Georgetown has not been giving an indication about the number of Guyanese who have been turned down for the holidaying visas, there have been indications that the falling numbers were because the demand has reduced.
A significant number of locals have those 10-year visas requiring fewer of them applying.
In recent years, the US has been approving more and more of those B1/B2 visas, a signal of the growing relationship with Guyana.
Correspondingly, they have been reporting that the number of Guyanese who have overstayed remains negligible- more than 95 percent returned home and did not overstay.
According to the US Department of State, June had the highest number of visas, with 521 issued.
The lowest was for the month of February when 202 was issued.
Between July 2017 and June 2018, the highest number issued was in July – 1,339.
The lowest was in January last year-242. The number of visitors’ visas has been high prior to 2017.
In 2017, there were 25,338 visas issued for the B1/B2 category.
Last year, too, the US Embassy became even busier after it was handed the job to interview Cubans for immigrant visas.
Years ago, there were significant rackets involving visas with Guyanese willing to pay millions of dollars to go to the US.
One US embassy official was even jailed following a visa racket.
In terms of immigrant visas, since 2008, the average number of persons who received visas to the US was around 4,500.
In 2015, the US issued almost 7.2M visitors’ visas. This went down to 6.9M in 2016 but fell to 6.3M in 2017.
For 2017, in the western hemisphere, of 28 nations, Guyana was ahead of 15 other countries in terms of the number of immigrant visas issued.
At 4,096, it was ahead of Venezuela at 2,917; Trinidad and Tobago at 1,285; Suriname at zero; Barbados at 1,789 and Brazil at 3,502.
Leading the western hemisphere for the number of visas issued in 2017 was Mexico at 86,876.
The Dominican Republic got almost 50,000. El Salvador and Haiti also have a significant number of immigrants to the US. So, too, does Jamaica.

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