Every consulate stopped scheduling immigrant visa interviews
The State Department has paused immigrant visa interviews at US embassies and consulates worldwide. The measure was confirmed in late August 2026 and framed as time for consular officers to train on new public charge screening guidance. It is not a slowdown at a few posts; it is a global stop, and applicants who already held scheduled interview dates have been receiving notices that their appointments are canceled and will be rescheduled at some later, unspecified point. As of mid-September, no firm resume date had been announced.
For anyone waiting on an immigrant visa abroad, that is a hard fact to plan around, because the one thing a consular case needs, an interview, is exactly what has been suspended. But the pause has clear edges, and understanding what it does and does not reach is what turns it from a crisis into a decision.
“A consular immigrant visa case needs an interview to finish, and that is exactly the step now frozen worldwide with no date attached. What is not frozen is adjustment of status inside the US.”
What is frozen, and what is not
The scope of the pause is specific, and the boundaries are where the planning happens.
| Process | Status right now |
|---|---|
| Immigrant visa interviews at consulates (EB and family) | Paused worldwide, no firm resume date |
| Adjustment of status inside the US (Form I-485) | Not affected; USCIS continues to adjudicate |
| Nonimmigrant visas (O-1, H-1B, F-1, B-1/B-2, and others) | Not affected; consulates continue processing |
The line that matters most runs between the first two rows. The pause is a State Department measure, and it reaches only the consular immigrant visa track. It does not touch USCIS, which keeps adjudicating adjustment of status applications filed inside the United States. So the same person seeking the same green card can be stalled indefinitely on the consular path while the stateside path continues to move, which is why the choice of path is suddenly worth real attention rather than defaulting to whichever was planned.
Why it happened: the public charge chain
The pause did not come out of nowhere; it is the latest link in a run of public charge changes. A federal court vacated the earlier State Department policy that had suspended immigrant visa issuance for nationals of 75 countries, holding it exceeded the Secretary of State’s authority. Around the same stretch, DHS rescinded the 2022 public charge regulation and restored a broader test, USCIS issued new public charge guidance in August, and a new DHS public charge policy takes effect for adjustment applications on September 18, 2026. The consular pause is presented as the time consular officers need to be trained on applying that new screening. Whatever the framing, the practical effect is a worldwide stop on the interview step while the government retools how it evaluates whether an applicant is likely to become a public charge.
That backdrop matters for a second reason. The new public charge standard is not confined to consulates; it also reaches adjustment of status filings from September 18. So the pause does not mean the consular path is uniquely burdened by public charge while adjustment escapes it. Both paths now face the tighter standard. What separates them today is simply that one of them is open and the other is closed.
What this means for employment-based applicants abroad
For the firm’s core population, EB-1A, EB-2 NIW, and EB-5 applicants, the pause lands differently depending on where they are in the process and whether they are inside the US.
If you can adjust status in the US
An applicant who is in the United States in a valid status, with a current priority date, and eligible to file or with a pending Form I-485, is on the one track that is still moving. If you were weighing consular processing against adjustment, the pause is a heavy thumb on the scale toward adjusting here, because a stateside filing does not depend on an interview slot that no longer exists. This is the same adjustment path our I-485 process guide walks through, and it is worth revisiting now specifically because the alternative is frozen.
If you must consular-process
Many applicants have no adjustment option, either because they are abroad or because they are not eligible to adjust, and for them the honest answer is that the timeline is out of their hands for now. The productive moves are the ones that pay off when interviews resume: keep the case fully documented and ready to file or proceed on short notice, monitor for the resumption announcement rather than assuming a date, and get a clear read on the new public charge standard, since it will apply to the interview whenever it is finally held. A frozen case that is otherwise complete will move faster when the freeze lifts than one that still has gaps to close.
What to do now
Start by confirming which track your case is actually on, because the pause only reaches one of them. If you are in the US and can adjust status, treat that as the live path and move on it rather than waiting on a consulate. If you can only consular-process, use the pause as preparation time: complete the record, address the new public charge factors in advance, and be ready to move the day interviews resume. And because the situation is fluid, with the pause open-ended and the public charge policy shifting on September 18, confirm the current state of play before making any irreversible decision, since the posture that is true this week may not hold the next.