Visa Revalidation

6/24/2004

The State Department in Washington, D.C. will discontinue processing
requests for visa revalidations for those eligible individuals effective early July 2004. Visa Revalidation is a process that can allow a foreign national who is in the USA on a valid, unexpired visa in the E, H, L, O, or P nonimmigrant category and whose visa stamp in his/her passport is or will expire the opportunity to get a new visa stamp in the same category without the inconvenience of traveling out of the USA to an American consulate to get the visa stamp. The only negative aspects to this is procedure are that it takes about 12 weeks for the State Department to process these requests, during which time one's passport is in the custody of the State Department, and the State Department does not always agree to provide a new visa stamp, especially with nationals of countries with which the USA has issues.

The reason for this action is that, at the present time, there is no feasible way for the State Department to collect applicable biometric security information (fingerprints, etc.). Although we have been advised that this is not a permanent end to the visa revalidation program, there are no current details on when the program may be reinstated.

The end result is that foreign nationals whose visas expire and who will be
traveling internationally will be required to visit an American Consulate
overseas (home country or, if eligible, Canada or Mexico) in order to obtain
new visa stamps in their passports after an extension of the visa status (if
applicable) has been filed and approved by the CIS.

For those foreign nationals who qualify for Advance Parole by virtue of
having an I-485 Application for Permanent Residency pending, you/they may
wish to consider applying for Parole which alleviates the need for visiting
an American Consulate in order to have the visa stamps revalidated. Our
office can assist in this regard.