Pakistan on Thursday expressed hope that the United States would \u201csoon\u201d resume immigrant visa processing, adding that it viewed the recent suspension as part of an internal review.<\/p>\n
The US on Wednesday announced the suspension of immigrant visa processing for Pakistan and 74 other countries, effective January 21, citing concerns that immigrants from these nations often rely on public welfare programmes.<\/p>\n
In its statement, the State Department had said the \u201cfreeze will remain active until the US can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people\u201d.<\/p>\n
Responding to a query about the move despite Pakistan\u2019s improved relations with Washington in recent months, Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Tahir Hussain Andrabi acknowledged coming across the \u201creports\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, it was a brief statement by the US State Department on their social media account about the internal review of processing immigrant visas that they are in the process of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in touch with the US authorities to ascertain further details. This is an evolving news that we are following.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand that this is an internal ongoing process of review of US immigration policies and system, and hope that the routine processing of immigrant visas will resume soon,\u201d the FO spokesperson added.<\/p>\n
The visa processing suspension could delay travel, study, and work plans for thousands of Pakistanis who annually seek US visas. Pakistani consulates in the US are expected to provide guidance to affected applicants in the coming days.<\/p>\n
The freeze is linked to the US public-charge rule, which evaluates whether immigrants are likely to rely on government assistance. While suspensions of visa services have occurred in the past, officials have termed the scope of this action unprecedented.<\/p>\n
No timeline has been given for resuming visa services, but the State Department assured that countries would be notified once the review is complete.<\/p>\n
\u2018Full confidence in Iranian people and their leadership\u2019
\nOn the ongoing unrest in Iran and Tehran\u2019s heightened tensions with the US, the FO spokesperson said Pakistan was \u201cclosely following the developments\u201d.<\/p>\n
Andrabi stressed: \u201cWe attach great importance to Iran, both as a neighbouring country and as an important player of the international community and an important member of the global fraternity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPakistan hopes that peace and stability will prevail, and we reaffirm our support for all efforts aimed at a peaceful resolution of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan on Thursday expressed hope that the United States would \u201csoon\u201d resume immigrant visa processing, adding that it viewed the recent suspension as part of an internal review. The US on Wednesday announced the suspension of immigrant visa processing for Pakistan and 74 other countries, effective January 21, citing concerns that immigrants from these nations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15271,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15272,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15270\/revisions\/15272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}