USCIS suspends premium processing for employment petitions

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced today that it is suspending premium processing requests for all Form I-129 Nonimmigrant Worker and Form I-140 Immigrant Worker petitions until further notice because of COVID-19.

Key points:

• Effective immediately, USCIS will not accept any new requests for premium processing of petitions for temporary workers or employment-based green card applicants.
• The agency will process premium processing requests that were accepted before March 20, but will issue only batch-printed notices (not pre-paid envelopes).
• Premium processing requests that were postmarked before March 20 but were not accepted before March 20 will be returned with the $1,440 filing fee.

BAL Analysis: The suspension of the 15-day expedited processing option will cause significant additional delays to USCIS processing. The announcement did not indicate how long the suspension would last.

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice group. For additional information, please contact berryapplemanleiden@bal.com.

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