To obtain an immigrant visa—the precursor to a green card or legal permanent residence—applicants must travel for an in-person interview with a consular officer. This crucial step is routine in many countries. In others, applicants may have to travel a great distance to reach an alternate consulate. But in still others, the United States has no immigrant visa processing at all, requiring applicants to obtain authorization to travel to a third country for processing.

This lack of processing is not a result of COVID-19 closures, but simply a policy choice on the part of the U.S. Department of State.

• In 2022, the State Department is indefinitely offering no routine immigrant visa processing in 67 countries.
• About 720 million people reside in countries without routine immigrant visa processing.
• The main alternate processing locations for these countries were an average of 669 miles away.
• Over the last decade, the State Department has issued over 400,000 immigrant visas to people from these countries

It almost certainly would have issued many more if not for this significant hurdle. Table 1 lists the countries without an immigrant visa processing consulate. The list of countries are based on the list of nationalities that the United States recognizes for purposes of processing nonimmigrant (or temporary) visas.

Figure 1 shows the operating status of consulates in countries without routine immigrant visa processing.

• No consulate: In 24 countries—about 36 percent of those without immigrant visa processing—the country simply does not have a consulate or embassy. Though this doesn’t always mean that there are no U.S. consular affairs officials in those countries, the lack of a consulate means that there is no opportunity to apply for visas. The two largest countries in this group are North Korea and the State of Palestine where the United States has no diplomatic ties. The rest are small states and island nations, the largest of which is Comoros with nearly 900,000 residents.
• Closed consulates: In another 12 countries—18 percent of cases—the State Department has closed the consulates. These are permanent or indefinite closures, not related to COVID-19. This list continues to grow. The earliest such closure was in Iran in 1979, and although other western countries like the United Kingdom do process visas there, the United States has made no attempt to revisit this decision in over four decades. In 2019, the State Department closed its consulate in Venezuela to demonstrate political opposition to its government. Most recently, the United States shuttered embassies in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, even though there is no fighting occurring in the latter two nations. One solution to this problem would be for the United States should divorce visa issuing functions from whether it has diplomatic ties with that country.
• Nonimmigrant-Only: Another 28 countries (42 percent of cases) actually have a consulate, but it only processes nonimmigrant (or temporary) visas to the United States. It will not handle immigrant visas. In one way, this makes sense because nonimmigrant visas are much more common than immigrant visas. But it is also difficult to justify excluding such a small percentage of applicants when immigrants typically have much closer connections to the United States. The State Department should make immigrant visa services immediately available at these locations.
• Almost No Visas or No Visas: The final three embassies (4 percent) without routine immigrant visa processing offer no visas at all (Central African Republic) and very limited nonimmigrant visa processing (Timor-Leste and South Sudan).

Figure 2 shows the number of countries without routine immigrant visa processing by distance to the country’s alternate processing location. 19 percent are less than 200 miles from the alternate location, while a majority are more than 400 miles. About 38 percent are more than 600 miles, and 19 percent are more than 1,000 miles.

In many cases, the alternate locations aren’t even in route to the United States, creating much longer trips than the raw mileage would indicate. But as attorney Amien Kacou points out, the lack of visa processing in country is more than a matter of just distance. For example, not only do Iranians need to leave Iran for the visa interview, they also need to leave their home country for other elements of the immigrant visa process, such as medical screening, making distance even more costly.

Other complications can arise when it is difficult to enter the alternate locations. For instance, Yemenis are required to be processed in Egypt, but they need to obtain a visa to enter Egypt. Attorney Rafael Urena estimates that the lack of in-country processing can add tens of thousands of dollars for large Yemeni families. Palestinians also have difficulty getting visa processing in Jerusalem because of Israel’s entry restrictions. Here is a depressing story about an Iraqi family who obtained visas to go to Turkey for processing, but their Turkish visas expired before the State Department processed their U.S. visas.

[E]mbassy officials declined to schedule an immigration appointment until she arrived in Turkey.… It took months of false starts and trips to bureaucratic offices before she finally obtained a Turkish visa … In Ankara, the couple learned the next available appointment was three months away.… They felt like outcasts because they didn’t speak Turkish. Khalaf ran out of one medicine, then another. He imagined a stroke or seizure striking him in his sleep.… [T]he expiration of their Turkish visas are causing the couple to fear they could be deported any day — him to the U.S., her to Iraq.

One Afghan told Ben Schamisso that he spent his life savings to be able to get a permit to travel to Pakistan. Some applicants, however, simply cannot travel to another embassy. “The problem is there is no embassy in Afghanistan,” Army Capt. Jeff Trammell told NBC about why he has been unable to obtain an immigrant visa for his Afghan interpreter. Trammell said he was frustrated with the refusal to do remote interviews electronically.

The requirement to interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate is one of the requirements that rarely makes it into a summary of U.S. immigration law, but it is important, and it can be very challenging in some circumstances. The State Department should conduct virtual interviews and allow immigrant visa applicants to interview at consulates that are currently nonimmigrant-only. Immigrating to the United States can be made much easier without congressional action, and this administration shouldn’t miss its opportunity to deliver.

Moments after the original version of this post was published, the State Department announced that it would fully reopen immigrant visa processing in Cuba starting Jan. 2023. The post has been updated accordingly.