Mass cancellation of nonimmigrant US visa appointments triggers panic: State Department says it’s for training
Thousands of visa applicants all across the world received emails from their embassies and consulates that their visa appointment has been cancelled and will be rescheduled only after September 1. This happened to non-immigrant visa applicants, which include student visas, work visas, tourism visas, etc. The emails spread panic as they came in the backdrop of several visa-related developments coming from the State Department. These mass cancellations were reported not from any specific country but sporadically from all across.“We regret to inform you that your upcoming nonimmigrant visa interview appointment has been cancelled. Your interview cannot be accommodated until after 1 September 2026. You may apply at the US Embassy/Consulate in your country of nationality. We regret any inconvenience this may cause,” one Redditor reported receiving this mail from non-immigrant visa unit of US embassy, Saudi Arabia.
State Department’s order to all embassies and consulates
The New York Times reported that this was an instruction from the State Department to all embassies and consulates that they must reschedule all visa interviews until consular offices complete training sessions on a “more restrictive policy”. And these training sessions will take place this week. And hence, the State Department sent this instruction to all offices on Monday, triggering the cancellations.In these training sessions, consular officers will be trained to deny immigrant visas (Green Card application, asylum) to applicants who will depend on government aid if they are in the United States.“In early August, we launched a global training initiative at all of our embassies and consulates worldwide. To accommodate this in-depth training, appointments for visa services will be adjusted,” the State Department said to New York Times.The cancellation emails sent shockwaves to applicants, as a similar rescheduling of appointments announced in December 2025 led to major chaos and a bottleneck, and there is still a backlog because of that rescheduling, which was necessitated by the new rule of social media vetting for H-1B visa holders.The NYT report said that separate of this emergency appointment cancellation order, the Trump administration is planning to revoke visas of foreign citizens who came to the US for tourism or business but then applied for asylum to become a permanent resident. The department has started reviewing such visas and around 200,000 people are estimated to become illegal if the government cracks down on these visas.
