Nearly 500,000 people are in the United States on an H-1B visa, and many of them are trapped here because of a bureaucratic requirement to have a stamp in their passport. This requirement applies even if you have a valid H-1B visa issued by the United States. Aside from the fact that this seems unnecessary if someone has been approved to work in the US is the challenge that many US consulates are now facing as a result of the pandemic: lack of staff to provide timely stamping appointments. This is particularly difficult for the nearly 75% of H-1B visa holders who are Indian nationals, according to USCIS. Many of these individuals haven’t seen their families in years, and even though travel restrictions have lifted in many places, this bureaucratic requirement still prevents them from going home for fear they may not be allowed back in the US. 

Here’s how it works: 

The US issues a work visa with a certain validity period. During that period, if the visa holder leaves the country, they must get a stamp on their passport from a US consulate (generally in their home country). If they do not have the stamp, even if their visa is still valid, they cannot re-enter the United States. 

Stamping appointments are booked via a website that is buggy, clunky, and difficult to navigate. Users are often kicked out if they log in more than four times a day. The situation is so dire that people have resorted to setting up informal Facebook, Telegram, and WhatsApp chats to try and figure out how to navigate the system. As one H-1B visa holder wrote in Quartz, “It’s both disarming and pitiable to see so many people, all well-educated, come together to decode a system that rules their lives.”

Currently, stamping appointments are not available due to pandemic staffing shortages and significant demand. This means that people who are legally allowed to work in the US cannot visit their families at home and have an assurance that they will be able to return to their lives and jobs in the United States. 

How can we essentially hold these people hostage when we don’t have the capacity to meet our own requirement? 

The US should end the visa stamping requirement immediately and allow these workers to visit their families. It is inhumane to make people choose between seeing their families and potentially losing the lives they’ve built here. We invited them to work here because we need them to build a strong economy. That shouldn’t mean they don’t have freedom to visit their loved ones abroad. Removing the stamping requirement would not only allow people to travel home, but it would also reduce an administrative burden on our US Consular staff that they don’t have the capacity to support.