 New guidelines for USA visa for the year 2022 were recently announced and this got a lot of people excited. A lot of people are wondering whether they qualify for an interview waiver. In this video I'm going to demystify all this hype and help you understand these updates so keep on watching. Hi guys my name is Shachi and I'm a travel and visa coach. In this channel you will find tons of list for videos on the US visa process. There is a separate playlist for F1 visa, for JVN visa, for V1 visa and new playlist succumbing up for H&L visa so make sure that you subscribe and stay tuned. Now in the last two months getting an interview slot has been an absolute nightmare. You can totally understand all the pain that most of you are going through to get that coveted interview slot and in this context any use of interview waiver can seem like a huge relief and I think that is something that people are hoping from the new update which was put out by the embassy. Unfortunately it doesn't quite live up to the hype especially for Indians and in this video I'm going to explain exactly why and also help you understand whether you do have that slim chance of qualifying for that interview waiver so let's get started. In the description box below there is a very useful tool called the interview waiver check. I've created this tool to help you understand whether you qualify for an interview waiver or not so just enter a few of your details and this will immediately tell you whether all these updates apply to you or not. So the update essentially talks about two different ways in which you can qualify for an interview waiver and let's understand both of these in depth. The first one is by being a citizen or a national of a country which falls under the interview waiver program. So the US has an interview waiver program which has a list of about 40 countries in it and if you are a citizen or a national of any of these countries then you automatically qualify for an interview waiver. Now the list of these 40 countries is there in the description box below there is a link you can click on that and view that list but India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Middle East countries, the African countries do not fall under this list of 40 countries. So which means that bulk of you who are watching this video today will not qualify for an interview waiver under the first condition. This brings us to the second part and this is essentially the main update which has been put out by the US Embassy and let's understand this in detail. So the second update applies to the work visas that is HLO, it applies to the PNQ visas, it also applies to the student and exchange visas that is FNJ and it also applies to all the dependents which come under these visa categories. So essentially it covers the bulk of the non-immigrant visas to the US. Now this second update lists three conditions and you need to qualify or rather you need to fulfill all of these three conditions to be eligible for an interview waiver. The first one is that you need to have a valid US visa issued today. So a US visa needs to be issued to you, this visa needs to be valid. This visa can be in any category, they do not restrict any category of visa under this. The second condition is that either you should not have any history of US visa rejection or that rejection needs to be rectified. That means that either you never had a US visa rejection or even if you had a US visa rejection subsequently you reapply again and then eventually got the visa. So just to explain this further let's say that you applied for a B2 visa and that visa was rejected. So if that rejection is still valid you do not qualify for the interview waiver but if you apply for the visa again and subsequently your B2 visa got accepted then you do qualify for the interview waiver. Please note that you really have to understand that the first and the second points are similar but they are independent of each other which means that you need to have a valid US visa at the same time no history of rejection under any category. So let's say that you have a valid F visa but you have a B2 visa rejection which eventually you did not get the B2 visa, you still don't qualify for the interview waiver. So these are the intricacies which needs to be really understood regarding the first and the second condition and after this comes the third condition and this is where the gray area really lies. So this condition says that there should not be any apparent or potential ineligibility. Now what exactly do they mean by this apparent or potential ineligibility is not spelt out just like how in US visa denials you're not really told the reason for denial. Similarly what exactly is this potential or apparent ineligibility is not clear as of now. This is totally up to the discretion of the visa officer or the consular officer. Most likely they will look at details of your education, your work profile, your travel history to determine whether you have any potential or apparent ineligibility. In the coming few days or weeks I think more clarity will be given on this criteria and of course I'll be tracking it on this channel and bring it to you right here. So these are the three conditions which need to be satisfied and like I said before all of these three should be valid for you to qualify for an interview waiver. Now given the nature of these conditions I believe that bulk of people who will be applying for the US visa do not really meet these criteria which means that we are back to square one. So even at the end of all of this if you're still confused whether you do qualify for an interview waiver or not you can check the link in the description box below there is a very useful tool called the interview waiver check and I have created this tool which will in a few seconds tell you whether you qualify for an interview waiver or not so you just need to enter your few details and check it and this will tell you whether you qualify for an interview waiver. So in conclusion most of you will still need to appear for an interview and for this I would advise that don't give up keep tracking availability of slot there are two hacks or rather two methods which really works the first one is to be part of telegram groups so there are a lot of telegram groups where people are updating the availability of slots the time in which the slots get released so do join these groups make use of the information there and try to book a slot the link for all these telegram groups is mentioned in the description box below. The second way is to get an emergency appointment so a lot of emergency appointments are being released and this is again a way in which you can try to get an interview date. How exactly to go about this process there is a separate video on this I'm going to link this video about make sure that you check it out and if you need my help in drafting your emergency visa application do get in touch with me and once you have that interview slot you really need to go ahead and smash that interview for an in-depth interview prep you can either book a one-to-one consultation session with me or you can take a mock interview both of these are tremendously useful and it will really help you in acing your visa interview so I have mentioned a ton of resources the link for all of this is right below in the description box so make sure that you check it out that's all for today all the new updates will be very very closely by me and it'll be brought to you right here on this channel so make sure that you subscribe you press the bell icon so that you don't miss on any updates and please do like this video so that I know that you found it useful if you have any more doubts or questions feel free to leave them in the comment section below you can also DM me on Instagram my Instagram handle is at chachi.one that's all for today signing off for now wish you all a very happy new year and let's hope that the entire drama around the slot availability comes to an end so see you in the next one bye