The U.S. Embassy and five Consulates in Mexico will hold special Saturday interview days on February 25, part of an expanded effort to reduce wait times for first-time visa applicants. This expanded visa service will be available at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City along with Consulates in Ciudad Juarez, Hermosillo, Matamoros, Monterrey, and Tijuana and to accommodate applicants who require in-person visa interviews.
These efforts are part of a multi-pronged initiative to address the backlog in visa processing that also includes the following:
- The Department of State is remotely processing interview waiver cases for applicants with previous U.S. visas.
- Beginning in January 2023, dozens of temporary consular officers from Washington DC and from other embassies arrived in Mexico to increase visa-processing capacity.
- The Department of State is also increasing the number of consular officers permanently assigned to the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Mexico.
- The U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Mexico made available more than 320,000 additional B1/B2 visitor visa appointments.
- Since November 2022, we have achieved a 32 percent reduction in wait times for a visitor visa interview in Mexico. We will continue to work hard to further reduce this wait time.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused profound reductions in the Department’s visa processing capacity, and many of our embassies and consulates were at times only able to offer emergency services. As travel restrictions have been lifted, the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Mexico made it a priority to facilitate legitimate travel and adjudicated over 1,800,000 nonimmigrant visas in 2022, including record numbers of both student and employment visas.
“Our efforts to reduce visa appointment wait times are making a difference,” said Daria Darnell, Minister Counselor for Consular and Consulate Affairs in Mexico. “We are processing visas faster than we did pre-pandemic and are committed to reducing this wait time as efficiently and quickly as possible.”
For more information about the visa process or to schedule a visa appointment, please visit: https://mx.usembassy.gov/visas/