In July last year, India began confiscating passports stamped with U.S. T visas.
“This is 100 percent in response to what happened with Khobragade,” said a congressional source who has discussed the matter with senior diplomats at the Indian embassy in Washington.
A March 3 high court ruling in India found India’s confiscation of passports with T visas unconstitutional. A March 16 memo from the Ministry of External Affairs seen by Reuters told “all missions and posts” to relax some aspects of the policy but not repeal it.
Since the ruling, people who had their passports seized have had them returned and new confiscations appear to have stopped, said Stockdale and the congressional source.
But since then, about 20 T visa holders have been unable to renew passports, said Stockdale, citing cases with which she has been directly involved.
At the Indian consulate in Houston, Naijo Kaiprampatt was told that to renew his passport, he needed to show proof he was trafficked by Signal. But he was recruited by another company, he says.
Kaiprampatt, 39, provided the name of that company and other information to the U.S. government, which gave him a T visa. He said the Indian consulate in Houston told him it has no authority to renew the passport of any Indian with a T visa unless that person was trafficked by Signal, and that he will have to bring proof that the company that brought him to the U.S. is related to Signal.
“They want the same documents that I gave to the U.S. government, but those are supposed to be confidential,” he said.