‘Immigration limbo’ finally over for local family, but visa backlog still impacting thousands
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When Sam Kunjummen’s in-laws arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Tuesday night, it was the end of a long journey in more ways than one.
Mathew Joseph and his wife, Annamma Mathew, had been among hundreds of thousands of people waiting years for their visa applications to be processed.
The IR-5 visa they were seeking, reserved for the parents of U.S. citizens, is supposed to be one of the easiest to get, but that has not been the case since the start of the pandemic.
“There has to be a time when you have to stop blaming that,” Kunjummen said. “You have to do things to get the process moving.”
RELATED: Parent visa backlog leaves local families in immigration limbo
Mathew Joseph, center, and his wife, Annamma Mathew, right, hold their youngest grandchild Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022, in Apple Valley. The couple — who are from India but whose daughter, Sherin Kunjummen, is a U.S. citizen — waited years to have their visa applications to be processed. (KSTP)
When Kunjummen first spoke with 5 INVESTIGATES in December 2021, a U.S. Department of State website reported nearly half a million “document qualified” applicants were still waiting for a final interview to get their visas.
On Wednesday, that same site showed the backlog had shrunk to about 380,000, but the number of people waiting is still far more than in years past.
The U.S. Embassy in India denied a previous request to expedite the Kunjummens’ case despite letters from U.S. Rep. Angie Craig’s office asking for assistance on behalf of the family.
“There’s people like us who did it legally, who did it correctly, and we have to wait,” Kunjummen said. “We’re U.S. citizens. It’s the parents of U.S. citizens, so they have a right to come here and get a visa.”
Kim Hunter, an immigration attorney with a private practice in St. Paul, says solving the problem comes down to political will and the deployment of resources.
“Unfortunately, immigration has been sort of triangulated upon as a political issue,” Hunter said. “If constituents aren’t saying, ‘What’s going on with this?’ it becomes easy to just … defer, deny, delay.”
The end of a long wait now means Kunjummens’ parents-in-law are able to hold their youngest grandson for the first time, but they know others in similar situations are still waiting for the government to act.
No one from the State Department responded to a request for comment from 5 INVESTIGATES on Wednesday, but in December a spokesperson said U.S. embassies and consulates had prioritized services to U.S. citizens overseas during the pandemic and that they were working to resume routine visa services on a location-by-location basis.
“They’re trying to catch up,” Kunjummen said. “But I feel they can do more still to try to catch up.”