The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) issued a statement reminding F and M students as well as J exchange visitors to be prepared for the upcoming Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) outage scheduled to start the evening of June 26th. In it's statement, USCIS announced that there will be important updates made to SEVIS, which, as a result, will be unavailable beginning at 8:00 pm EDT on Friday, June 26, 2015, through 8:00 pm EDT on Sunday, June 28, 2015.
D&S encourages F, M, and J visa holders to be prepared for delays if they have scheduled international travel during which they will be applying for a new visa stamp or reentering the U.S. during the outage period.
USCIS indicates that several important SEVIS services will be unavailable during the outage including possible delays for U.S. student visa issuance, and directs potentially impacted individuals to check with their local U.S. Department of State embassy or consulate for more information about the effects of the outage of visa issuance.
Additionally, USCIS warns F and M students returning to the U.S. during the outage to expect delays at U.S. ports of entry and notes that international students whose "information cannot be verified during primary inspection will be sent to secondary inspection where they can expect additional significant delays in entering the country."
USCIS also indicates that the I-901 SEVIS Fee payments on FMJFee.com will be unavailable during this time and, thus, students and exchange visitors should make payments before June 26 to avoid the need to wait until the outage is over. USCIS notes that although payments will not be accepted, F and M students will still be able to print their payment confirmation receipts from the website.
Finally, USCIS notes that the outage could result in delays for students and exchange visitors applying for social security numbers or U.S. driver's licenses and advises potentially impacted individuals to check with their local Social Security Administration or Department of Motor Vehicles.