§ 42.73 Procedure in issuing visas.

(a) Evidence of visa. An immigrant visa shall be evidenced by a physical visa or by an electronic visa located in the Department's records. The appropriate symbol as prescribed in § 42.11, showing the classification of the alien, shall be entered on the visa. (b) Visa format. A machine-readable visa shall be in the format designated by the Department, and contain, at a minimum, the following data: (1) Full name of the immigrant; (2) Visa symbol; (3) Location of the visa issuing office; (4) Passport number; (5) The registration number (A-number) assigned to the immigrant; (6) Sex; (7) Date of birth; (8) Nationality; (9) Date of issuance; (10) Date of expiration; (11) Visa control number; (12) Any annotations entered to reflect waivers or other information useful to an immigration officer at a port of entry (POE) upon the immigrant's application for admission to the United States; (13) A digitized photo of the immigrant; and (14) Machine-readable data that can be processed by an immigration officer at a POE. (c) Disposition of supporting documents. Post shall, wherever possible, return original supporting documents furnished by the alien. Duplicate copies may be retained in the consular system, as required or necessary.