Citizens of most Asian countries face a nightmarish visa process if they wish to travel to America, Britain, Canada or the Schengen area
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskSharmin Rahman, a student at a German university, asked the embassy in Dhaka for a visa appointment in June 2021. Only in August did the Germans request documents. The visa will take at least three months to be processed. He will miss the first few months of in-person classes. Lubab Munir, a Bangladeshi lawyer who trained in Britain, was meant to go to a friend’s wedding in Athens in August.
As the pandemic recedes and travel opens up, a wave of demand in the largest markets for Western consular services is colliding with operations that have been cut to the bone or shut down entirely. Diplomats who moved home during the pandemic have not all been replaced. America’s State Department says it has doubled recruitment for consular posts this year, and is looking into hiring diplomats’ family members, who are already in-country, to do administrative work.
Geopolitics forms another bottleneck. When America and its allies pulled out of Afghanistan last year, many set up special programmes to help Afghans emigrate, thereby taking up some visa-processing capacity. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, many consular officials were redirected to work on visas for refugees. “That slows down the rest of the system,” admits a British diplomat. Brexit has an impact too.
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