Visa approvals continue to rise since start of pandemic, jumping 73% from last fiscal year – By Gabe Ortiz (Daily Kos) / Dec 16, 2022
The Biden administration announced this month that more than 967,000 immigrants were naturalized as U.S. citizens in the 2022 fiscal year, marking one of the biggest years in U.S. history. But that wasn’t the only encouraging trend from 2022. Visa approvals for applicants outside the country also sharply rebounded since the start of the pandemic, according to unpublished data obtained by CBS News.
“During the 12-month span that ended on Sept. 30, the State Department issued 493,000 visas to immigrants overseas who had applied to move to the U.S. permanently, a 73% jump from fiscal year 2021 and a 7% increase from fiscal year 2019, the last full fiscal year before the pandemic,” the report reads.
The CBS News report shows that visas issued by the State Department rose at the end of the Obama administration, from 531,000 in 2015 to 618,000 in 2016, before beginning a decline under the nativist policies of the insurrectionist administration. In 2019, the State Department issued 462,000 visas, a number that would be slashed nearly in half when the pandemic hit the following year, and much processing shut down.
