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Today (April 2nd 2019), my family had an appointment at USCIS ASC Washington location. At the appointment, we were told that ASC has suspended the processing of UK visa biometrics until further notice. We have a Schengen visa appointment date on April 29th so now we are not sure what our options are.

Due to unanticipated events we are unable to accept UK visa applicants at this time. We are working closely with the UK to resolve this and hope to begin processing again soon. Affected customers should monitor the following web page, which will provide an alert when service has been restored, at which point you will be able to return to this ASC to complete your appointment.

1. Does anyone know what these unanticipated events are?


2. Do we have any other option to fast track UK visa?

And I am curious why we've received this updated only through some third party vendor (VFS global) and not through an official UK communication channel.

IF you visit the link given in the letter you posted, you will see a link to a message about the disruption, which says in part:

Normal service is in place across all 10 US VFS Premium Application Centres and available to all UK visa customers. Please note that services at these locations attract additional charges. Click ‘Premium Application Centres’ from the choices above for more information.

This answers your second question.

According to the VFS Global website:

Biometric enrolment services provided for UK visa customers at US
Dept. of Homeland Security Application Support Centers (ASCs) are
temporarily suspended. Work is ongoing to restore service as soon as
possible – please monitor this page for updates.

Customers with ASC appointments this week are advised to monitor this
page for updates to confirm that service has been restored, before
travelling to their chosen ASC location.

If you are an affected customer and have missed your appointment due
to this service interruption, you may present at your chosen ASC
location on a ‘walk-in’ basis, as soon as you see the message on this
page that service has been restored.

Normal service is in place across all 10 US VFS Premium Application
Centres and available to all UK visa customers. Please note that
services at these locations attract additional charges. Click ‘Premium
Application Centres’ from the choices above for more information.

There are 4 solutions -

1. If there's still a lot of time for travel, then wait for services to
   go back up.


2. If you have time, then Create a new visa application,
   and use VFS premium ASC centre, and bronze service right away.
   Create a refund request for older application. Link for this would
   be on payment confirmation email.


3. If short on time and in hurry,
   create new application and purchase silver package VFS for faster
   processing.


4. If have 3-4 weeks before travelling, wait little longer for the service at ASC to go backup. Once it does, then buy the premium processing service ($289). Note this is not at premium location so do this ONLY if ASC service is back up. This will take 5-7 days for processing so you can make up for the lost time.

Hope this helps.