USCIS expands premium processing, but only for certain previously filed petitions
This week, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it would soon expand the availability of premium processing for certain petitions that have already been filed.
Under the new policy, petitioners can request premium processing of their pending Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers, “under an E13 multinational executive and manager classification or E21 classification as a member of professions with advanced degrees or exceptional ability seeking a national interest waiver . . ..”
To request premium processing, the eligible petitioner must file a Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing Service. Requests for premium processing of E13 multinational executive and manager petitions will be accepted starting this Tuesday, June 1, but the petitions must have been received by the USCIS on or before January 1, 2021. Starting July 1, the USCIS will accept premium processing requests for these petitions if the petitions had been received by the USCIS on or before March 1, 2021.
Also starting July 1, the USCIS will accept premium processing requests for E21 national interest waiver petitions that were received by the USCIS on or before June 1, 2021.
The rapid approval of these additional I-140 petitions will also allow the petitioners’ eligible beneficiaries to apply for adjustment of status to a permanent resident in the United States or for an immigrant visa abroad.
If the request for premium processing is accepted by the USCIS, the petition will be processed in 45 days. The premium processing fee is $2,500.
Background
Historically, requests for premium processing have been available for employer petitioners for certain I-129 (E, H, L, O, P, Q and TN) and I-140 Immigrant Petitions for Alien Workers categories. Petitioners paid an additional fee to have the processing completed within 15 days.
To reduce long delays in processing certain employer petitions and individual applications, the USCIS announced several changes to premium processing earlier this spring. The changes included adding Form I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, and Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization. The USCIS also announced at that time that more I-140 petition categories would become eligible for premium processing. The changes were to be phased in starting in the current fiscal year (FY22), and the first priority was to be the changes to Form I-140 processing. That was the subject of this week’s USCIS announcement.
The premium processing time for the I-129 categories will remain at 15 days. The fees for premium processing for most of these categories has increased to $2,500.
The fee for premium processing of the I-539 will be $1,750, and the fee for premium processing of the I-765 will be $1,500.
New I-907 form
Also this week, the USCIS published a new version of Form I-907. Petitioners can use either the old form (the 9/30/20 form) or the new form (the 5/31/22 form) through June 30. As of July 1, the USCIS will no longer accept the old form.
