US visa glitch causing major headache for international visitors

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US Visa Glitch Causing Major Headache For International Visitors – www.plnmedia.com

Thousands, and possibly tens of thousands of visitors to the United States may be in for a major headache after a technical glitch in the country has all but halted visa processing around the world.

A group of over 100 computer tech experts are working to resolve a glitch in the hardware system of the State Department facility since June 9. The department said they would be back up and running this week but there will be a major global backlog.

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The US receives about 50,000 visa applications every day. Officials said that so far about a half a million visas are backlogged.
To make things worse, the influx of student visas to the US will add more load to the system starting in August.
“We don’t expect that the system will be online before next week. I can’t give you any more specific detail with respect to timing on that,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday.“This is a global issue and we’re working around the clock to fix it.”

The hardware failure is preventing the “processing and transmitting the mandatory security-related biometric data checks,” Mr Kirby added.

While the US regretted the inconvenience “this is very much a security issue and that’s why we’re taking it so seriously.”

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This is not the first time a glitch caused such an issue with the system. Last year a glitch related to a software patch also caused a massive backlog in the visa processing system.