India, Dec. 19 -- Krishna Iyer (name changed) got an email from the US Consulate in Chennai on Tuesday, December 9, just before boarding his flight to India that his H-1B Visa renewal stamping interview scheduled for end of December 2025 has been moved to July 2026.

However, Iyer was not alone. Thousands of several Indian H-1B and H-4 visa applicants received update that their visa renewal interviews were auto-rescheduled by the US consulates across India, that too not by just days or weeks but by several months to 2026.

The US Department of State (DOS) has announced that, effective December 15, 2025, consular officers will begin conducting mandatory online-presence reviews for all H-1B specialty occupation workers and H-4 dependent fam...