The US Embassy has confirmed that the Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs is currently experiencing technical problems with overseas passport and visa systems.
This issue is not specific to any particular country or visa category rather it affects the operations of all US overseas diplomatic missions including the mission located in Georgetown.
Bobby Adelson, Public Affairs Officer of the US Embassy, Georgetown informed Stabroek News yesterday that the embassy “is currently unable to print immigrant and nonimmigrant visas approved after June 8, 2015 and US passport applications submitted via the local embassy between May 26, and June 14, 2015.”
In addition, the embassy is unable to process new applications submitted on or after June 9, 2015. Applicants with interview appointments scheduled for this week, June 14-20, are asked to reschedule if they submitted a DS-160 online application after June 9, 2015. Appointments can be rescheduled by following the instructions located on the embassy website at http://georgetown.usembassy.gov/visas.html
Nonimmigrant visa applicants who submitted their DS-160 online application prior to June 9, 2015, are asked to attend their scheduled appointment.
Individuals with urgent travel should follow the instructions for expedited emergency appointment found on http://georgetown.usembassy.gov/non-immigrant-visas/emergency-travel.html
Persons who have applied for a US passport through the US Embassy in Guyana between May 26, and June 14, 2015 and have travel plans within the next 10 business days, are asked to request an emergency passport at the embassy.
Bureau of Consular Affairs spokesman Niles Cole reportedly explained to US technological media site FCW, that a hardware failure on June 9, stopped the flow of biometric data submitted from overseas posts to a central database.
“While the bureau can issue emergency passports for urgent travel, the standard process by which a visa is issued after a background check has stalled because biometric data cannot be transmitted to the Consular Consolidated Database,” Cole is reported as saying.
On its travel.state.gov website the Department has denied that the present technical difficulties are the same as those experienced last July which saw the Consular Consolidated Database forced offline for three days as Consular Affairs upgraded the system’s enterprise management platform.
This outage caused a backlog in visa issuances that took about two weeks to clear.
The Department has also so far denied that there is any evidence that the present difficulties are linked to any cyber security breach.
While there has been no proffered timeline, the Department says it is “working urgently to correct the problem and restore full operability.”