US govt shutdown: What Indians need to know about visa processing and travel delays | Explained

The United States is now in the middle of its first government shutdown since 2018. Nearly 24 hours have passed since federal agencies began suspending operations after funding lapsed, putting hundreds of thousands of government workers on furlough and disrupting essential services. With the Senate out of session for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, lawmakers are not expected to vote on reopening the government until at least Friday. That means the shutdown is almost certain to stretch on for several days.

While the political fight is playing out in Washington, the consequences are being felt globally, including in India. The US Embassy in New Delhi has already announced that its social media account on X will “not be updated regularly” due to the shutdown. “Because of the lapse in appropriations, this X account will not be updated regularly until full operations resume, with the exception of urgent safety and security information,” the embassy said. A similar message was posted by the US Embassy in Sri Lanka.

For now, the embassy has clarified that passport and visa services will continue “as the situation warrants.” But the shutdown still creates significant uncertainties for Indians seeking to travel, work, or study in the United States.

Visa processing is expected to see delays in several areas. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which runs on filing fees rather than congressional appropriations, will remain operational. This means green card, work permit, and naturalisation applications should move forward. However, the Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification, which processes labour condition applications (LCAs) for H-1B visas, is offline.

Immigration attorney Nicole Gunara explained the immediate impact: “What this means is that no one can get a new H-1B, transfer employers, or change status to H-1B unless they already got the LCA certified and downloaded before today. Anyone who doesn’t have a certified LCA will have to wait for the government to reopen to have their H-1B processes continued.”

Silicon Valley lawyer Sophie Alcorn noted that the disruption will fall hardest on new applicants. “The shutdown creates a mixed bag of consequences, hitting new applications the hardest while largely sparing those already in process. For the Indian diaspora, who represent a huge portion of H-1B and employment-based green card applicants, the biggest immediate impact comes from the department of labour,” she told Hindustan Times.

Other immigration-linked services will also be affected. The E-Verify programme, used by US businesses to confirm employees’ work eligibility, has gone offline. Employers will have to rely on manual verification, which could slow hiring. Immigration courts are another weak point. While hearings for detained migrants will continue, cases for non-detained individuals are likely to be suspended. During the 2019 shutdown, nearly 94,000 cases were postponed. With more than 3.4 million cases already pending, delays this time could be even more severe.

There is no clarity on how long the shutdown will last. President Donald Trump has previously presided over the longest one in US history, a 35-day standoff in 2018–19. Each passing day now adds to the uncertainty. As Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, told AFP, “The damage of a shutdown is often more insidious. It interrupts the longer-term investments that are necessary to make our government run over time.”