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Immigration News Briefs

Provided by Sadia Subhani

June 2025

Two new tools for interview availability

In late April, the State Department rolled out two new interview availability monitoring tools, the Global Visa Wait Times tool and the Immigrant Visa (IV) Scheduling Status Tool. Both can be accessed through the US Visas link: travel.state.gov

The Global Visa Wait Times tool provides a monthly snapshot by consular post of the next available visa interview date for various visa categories and the average wait time for a B-visa interview. The IV Scheduling Status Tool is the most significant update. Updated monthly, the IV Scheduling Status Tool provides information by post and visa category indicating the month and year in which recently scheduled cases became documentarily complete. Users can then compare the date in which their case became documentarily complete to suggest a timeframe for their case.

The website cautions that, because many factors go into scheduling an IV interview, the National Visa Center cannot predict precisely when a particular case will be scheduled for an interview. It also notes that there are certain visa cases that are not reflected in the IV Tool, including: Diversity Visas, I-601A provisional waivers, and Adoptions.

Temporary freeze of automatic SSN issuance

Each year, the Social Security Administration (SSA) automatically issues millions of Social Security numbers and cards to non-citizens granted work authorization as part of an agreement with USCIS.The agreement, known as Enumeration Beyond Entry (EBE), benefits both the work-authorized non-citizens, who receive their cards in the mail as part of the application process, and the government, which does not need to spend time and money processing separate applications for millions of Social Security numbers. In the absence of EBE, everyone granted work authorization will be required to visit a Social Security field office to obtain a new SSN and card.

In late March 2025, the SSA quietly enacted a new policy that the EBE program for “noncitizens granted work authorization” and “newly naturalized U.S. citizens” has been “temporarily” frozen. It is unknown how long the freeze will be in place or if it will ever be lifted. People with new or pending work authorization applications have not been informed. Currently, people who receive approval for work authorization likely believe that their SSN and card are being processed and that the card will soon be in the mail. But this is not happening.

The SSA has also frozen EBE for newly naturalized citizens. Most of those individuals have already been issued an SSN. However, EBE also allowed newly naturalized citizens to process a name change and update their citizenship status without visiting an SSA office. (Individuals granted permanent residence status are also covered under EBE but were excluded from the freeze.) This and another new SSA policy requiring ID checks from US citizens in certain situations could send up to 160,000 additional people to SSA field offices each week as the agency slashes 12% of its staff and closes dozens of field offices.

APPLICATION FINAL ACTION DATES FOR JUNE 2025

FAMILY	India	Pakistan/Bangladesh
1st	08Jun16	08Jun16
2A	01Jan22	01Jan22
2B	22Sep16	22Sep16
3rd	22Jun11	**22Jun11**
4th	15Jun06	01Jan08

EMPLOYMENT	India	Pakistan/Bangladesh
1st	15Feb22	Current
2nd	01Jan13	15Oct23
3rd	15Apr13	**08Feb23**
Other	15Apr13	22Jun21
4th	U	U
5th	01May19	Current1B

DATES FOR FILING VISA APPLICATIONS - JUNE 2025

FAMILY	India	Pakistan/Bangladesh
1st	01Sep17	01Sep17
2A	01Feb25	01Feb25
2B	01Jan17	01Jan17
3rd	22Jul12	22Jul12
4th	01Dec06	01Jun08

EMPLOYMENT	India	Pakistan/Bangladesh
1st	15Apr22	Current
2nd	01Feb13	15Nov23
3rd	08Jun13	01Mar23
Other	08Jun13	22Jul21
4th	01Feb21	01Feb21
5th	01Apr22	Current1B