Daily Digest, September 17, 2026: 864 Re-Interviews in Two Days for One Queue — Silence for the Other
The government's status report of 16 September, reported secondhand, answers the week's question about capacity. In the two days after 14 September, posts scheduled about 864 re-interviews for diversity visa applicants who had already been interviewed, plus 45 first interviews; 85 re-interviews and 6 first interviews were completed, and 28 cases were approved for issuance. Through 13 September the totals had been about 106 re-interviews and 41 first interviews since late August. We have not read the filing. Even if the figures are off by half, when a post is told to schedule, it schedules in the hundreds.
The queue that is moving, and the one that is not
Every one of those numbers is a diversity visa number, and the visa year ends on 30 September. Outside the diversity programme the pattern from the last two days is uniform. A named plaintiff in one suit was called for a re-interview at Islamabad, dated 30 September. Named plaintiffs at Lima are being re-interviewed from today. Plaintiffs at Almaty are being scheduled. One applicant who waited outside a post counted roughly fifteen re-interviews a day, all diversity visa plaintiffs, against 132 such cases there. From Accra and Johannesburg, applicants report a last-updated date that stopped on 3 or 11 September and a reply that reads, in full, thank you for your email. We record the sequencing as a working theory, not a policy: plaintiffs and diversity visas first, everyone else after the 30th.
One exception, and it came through the clinic
A spouse-of-resident applicant at Pristina, refused under the pause after a January interview and not a plaintiff, was phoned yesterday by the panel medical centre and told to redo the medical today. The post itself has sent nothing and the case has not moved on CEAC. The applicant had called the clinic two days earlier, and the clinic checked with the post. That is the first non-plaintiff instruction we hold since the cable, at a post with fewer than fifty pause cases. Either small posts clear their diversity cases fast and move on, or asking the clinic is a back channel worth trying.
Tomorrow's rule, and October's dates
The new public-charge rule takes effect on 18 September. For applicants outside the country, yesterday's itemised re-interview is what the rule looks like at a window. Separately, the first October appointment has been pulled: a Cairo applicant with an early-October date received the same reschedule email September applicants got. One case is not a wave, but it is the first sign the suspension is not bounded by the month.
Outside the pause
An H-1B applicant at Toronto saw CEAC flip to Approved three days after a 31 August interview and has had no passport or human reply eight working days later. An Islamabad spouse case interviewed on 24 July, with a white slip and no documents requested, got a congressional inquiry answered with one line: the interview is complete and you will be told if anything is needed. A student's dependent was asked by email for a Form I-134 the sponsor cannot meaningfully complete, then got the passport back with a second slip saying nothing more was required.
Where the numbers stand
Seventy-five cancellation reports across 25 posts. Forty-eight were September appointments and three have replacement dates. Ten confirmed pairs, gaps of 8 to 70 days. Eight records added today. In the re-check of 30 open cases from the last three weeks, none newly resolved. The figures are crowdsourced and anonymised; they describe what people chose to report.