AMCHAM’s Tamil Nadu Chapter organized a visa workshop on December 19th, 2018 in Chennai with guest speaker Mr. Matt L. Blevins, Vice Consul, U.S Consulate General Chennai. This visa workshop was the outcome of a need felt by travel managers and immigration specialists at member companies to fully comprehend the U.S. visa process. The meeting began with opening remarks by Mr. Aubrey Daniels, Regional Director, Tamil Nadu Chapter, AMCHAM.

Mr. Matt L. Blevins began by presenting salient features of the U.S. visa process. This was followed by an interactive session during which Mr. Blevins patiently addressed all the concerns of members present. He responded to all questions which related to the U.S. visa process. He stated that Visa Officers at the Consulate facilitate legitimate business travel to the U.S and that the Consulate also processes the H and L categories of the petition based visas. He said that the burden of proof of the applicant’s ties to the country has to be clearly articulated to enable the interviewing officer to adjudicate the application in a fair manner. The proof, he said could be social, professional, commercial or family ties to India. Mr. Blevins said that all applicants were interviewed with the objective of issuing them with a 10 year visa and hence it was up to the applicant to be able to clearly articulate his responses with respect to the purpose of travel and ties to the country. Mr. Blevins added that the L 1 A visa category was for the manager category and not for a line or operational manager, while the L1 B was for applicants with specialized knowledge and/or proprietary knowledge.

 After the interactive session the meeting concluded with thanks by the Regional Director, Mr. Aubrey Daniels, to Mr. Matt Blevins and to all the participants at the meeting.