Indians will be the largest group affected, following the new US decision for six major categories of working visas that will come into effect from July 16.
According to the new rules, holders of 'E' (traders and investors), 'H'(professionals), 'I'(journalists), 'L' (corporate workers), 'O' (people with particular skills) and 'P' (entertainers, artists, athletes) categories of visas will no longer be able to renew their papers in US and have to travel to a US embassy abroad to be fingerprinted before their visas are renewed.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services, Bureau of Consular Affairs Janice Jacobs has admitted that Indians will the largest group that will be affected following the US move.
Last year 50,000 visas were issued under these categories and of these 46 per cent were given to Indians, Jacob said.
When asked why Indians have been targeted when not a single Indian has so far been linked to hijacking, Jacob said the fact that 46 per cent of the affected people will be Indians but the rules was not aimed at any particular nationality.
"A lot of these visas that we renew are people working here in the information technology field and there are a lot of Indians doing that and I think that is why it turned out that way," he said.
"This is not aimed at any particular nationality. I think that the Indians have over the years benefited the most from this programme, but it just turned out that way.
"Again, this is being done primarily because of a Congressional requirement that we have for collecting
biometrics and we are also doing more interviews of applicants now than we did in the past. Again, we don't conduct these interviews here in the US," Jacobs said.
"What we have been told by our Inspector General, what we have been told by Congress and the General Accounting Office is that basically what we were doing in the US was not what we are now doing overseas and that we needed to fix that.
But, really, it is because we cannot collect the fingerprints in the United States. That is the primary reason why we are having to end this service, he added.
