U.S. embassies and consulates have been told to restart immigrant-visa interviews immediately, ending a month-long global pause that rattled family- and employment-based green-card applicants. In a September 10 diplomatic cable—publicly confirmed on September 23—the Department of State instructed posts to “resume normal scheduling and issuance of all immigrant visa classes without delay.” The suspension began August 21 after a federal court vacated a separate policy that had barred immigrant-visa issuance for nationals of 75 countries labeled high-risk for public-benefit use. Consular sections struggled to re-configure screening procedures, prompting the prophylactic pause. During that interval, adjustment-of-status processing inside the United States continued, but most overseas applicants could not secure interviews—creating backlogs and jeopardizing Fiscal-Year 2026 visa-number usage. Posts have now been authorized to open appointment slots immediately and to prioritize cases that were cancelled between August 26 and September 22. Consular chiefs may request surge staffing and are encouraged to conduct Saturday interview clinics through October. The National Visa Center is expected to release a revised interview schedule within days, and the Immigrant Visa Scheduling Status Tool already displays new target dates for Frankfurt, Manila and Mumbai. For employers, the restart is critical: EB-2 and EB-3 applicants trapped abroad can again finalize visas and report for U.S. assignments before year-end. Global mobility teams should monitor post-specific queues and prepare refreshed civil documents, as many will have expired during the pause. Applicants should also budget for possible medical-exam re-takes if original reports are more than six months old. Long term, the episode highlights the fragility of consular operations in the face of litigation and policy shifts. Companies relying on consular immigrant-visa processing may wish to diversify strategies—pursuing concurrent adjustment when feasible or leveraging alternate non-immigrant categories to stage personnel in the United States pending permanent residency.
