U.S. Embassy In Cuba Issuing Work-Related Visas, Providing U.S. Companies With Employment Opportunities
/United States Department of State
Washington DC
14 August 2024
U.S. Embassy Havana to Expand Visa Services to Include Some Work and Exchange Visas; B1/B2 Visa Services Remain Suspended
On Monday, August 19 the U.S. Embassy in Havana will expand visa services to include certain categories of temporary work and exchange program visas. Cubans with temporary work petitions approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and participants in exchange visitor programs with an approved Certificate of Eligibility will be able to schedule a visa interview at the U.S. Embassy in Havana. This change does not include nonimmigrant visas for persons who want to enter the United States temporarily for business (B-1 visa) or for tourism (B-2 visa). Cubans must still travel to another U.S. Embassy or consulate for routine B1/B2 visa interviews.
The expanded visa services at the U.S. Embassy in Havana will include the following categories: H- Temporary workers or trainees; J- Exchange visitors; L-Intracompany transferees; O- Workers with extraordinary ability or achievement; P- Athletes, artists, and entertainers; Q- International cultural exchange participants; R- Members of a religious denomination performing religious work. A visa appointment is not a guarantee of visa issuance. Applicants must demonstrate their qualifications for the visa under U.S. law and regulations.
To be scheduled for an interview appointment for categories H, L, O, P, Q, and R, applicants will be required to submit evidence of their approved petition (Form I-797 Notice of Action) from USCIS. To apply for an interview for a J visa, applicants must submit a Certificate of Eligibility for Exchange Visitor Status, Form DS-2019, issued by the exchange program sponsor. Interviews will be scheduled only after an approved Form I-797 or Form DS-2019 have been submitted to the Embassy. Applicants also need to provide the required application, fees, a valid passport, and a current photo. For more information, see: https://cu.usembassy.gov/visas/ For more information on USCIS processing of temporary worker petitions, see: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-nonimmigrant-workers
Miami Herald
Miami, Florida
14 August 2024
U.S. embassy in Havana to start issueing visas suspended since Trump era
By Nora Gámez Torres
Starting on Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Havana will expand its visa services to facilitate cultural and educational exchanges between the two countries, a State Department official told the Miami Herald. Cubans seeking to travel to the United States for academic and cultural exchanges, temporary work, or to study at a U.S. university will now be able to apply for a non-immigrant visa in Havana.
The U.S. Embassy will also process visas for athletes, artists, members of religious groups, those with “extraordinary abilities” and employees transferring to other company positions in the United States. Previously, Cubans had to apply for such visas in third countries.
The Trump administration suspended visa services in Cuba in 2017, citing incidents related to the Havana Syndrome ailment and the need to reduce its staff to a minimum. As a result, Cubans wanting to migrate or visit the United States were asked to travel to a third country to obtain visas. The Biden administration started processing some immigrant visas again in May 2022 and all immigrant visa categories by January of last year.
However, the embassy has not issued non-immigrant visas, except for some activists and private entrepreneurs. The issuing of B1 and B2 tourist visas is still suspended in Havana, and Cubans must still travel to a third country to apply. “There’s no change with B1/B2 visas,” the State Department official said. The visa service expansion responds to increased embassy staffing and efforts to eliminate “barriers” to educational and cultural contacts that the Biden administration wants to support, the official said.
“We thought about how we could make the exchange we want more feasible and fluid,” the official said, adding that in the past, musicians and students, for example, had to spend more money to travel to third countries like Mexico to obtain a U.S. visa. The official noted that all those visa categories required a U.S. sponsor to petition the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
“These are categories where there is not much influx, and our staff can accommodate them,” the official said. “It is important to emphasize that all of them require prior approval from USCIS or an academic institution.” The official said the number of embassy employees has doubled in the last two years, but there are still not enough consular staff to reinstate all visa services fully.
Amid a massive wave of migration from Cuba, the largest since Fidel Castro took power in 1959, the U.S. Embassy in Havana gradually ramped up its visa services to clear a backlog of immigration petition cases that reached 100,000 in 2021. Those included about 22,000 cases from the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program, handled separately by USCIS and suspended by the Trump administration, which closed the USCIS office in Havana in 2018. USCIS reopened it last August to resolve the remaining cases under that program.
The State Department official said the visa backlog affecting Cubans has been cleared, and immigration visa applications currently do not take so long to decide. According to available statistics from the State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Havana issued 28,143 immigrant visas in fiscal year 2023. Still, by the time the embassy in Havana fully resumed immigrant visa processing in January 2023, thousands of Cubans who might have benefited from such legal programs had already opted to journey to South and Central America to make the perilous journey to the U.S. border with Mexico, fleeing from political repression and economic collapse on the island. U.S. Customs and Border Protection registered 535,037 encounters with Cubans at the Mexico border between September 2021 and June 2024. Some entered using a new legal pathway, using the CBPOne app launched in late 2020. Crisis in Cuba Cuba’s economic crisis is worsening.
The country lost 10% of its population to migration, but the government announced a crackdown on the private sector.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, another 104,130 Cubans arrived in the United States through a new parole program that began in January 2023. The program allows Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who have a U.S. sponsor to come to the United States to work in an effort to bring down illegal border crossings. The Department of Homeland Security temporarily suspended the program earlier this month to investigate allegations of fraud. Experts fear Cubans will continue coming in large numbers as the country goes through one of its worst economic crises in decades and the government continues enforcing laws punishing freedom of expression and dissent.
