USCIS issued a press release today announcing that additional categories of employment-based immigrant petitions will become eligible for premium processing service on September 25, 2006.
For an additional fee of $1000, premium processing service guarantees that USCIS will process an application or petition within 15 calendar days of receiving a Request for Premium Processing Service.
Premium processing will now be available for the following employment based (EB) I-140 petitions:
- EB-1 “B” Outstanding Professors and Researchers;
- EB-2 Members of Professions with Advanced Degrees or Exceptional Ability, except for “National Interest Waivers”;
- EB-3 skilled workers;
- EB-3 professionals; and
- EB-3 “other workers”
Premium processing is not being extended at this time to other I-140 categories, including extraordinary ability petitions, multinational manager petitions, and national interest waiver petitions.
In addition, USCIS has clarified that certain cases that would normally be eligible for premium processing will not be included in the program because of complications that limit their ability to process the case in 15 days, including petitions where a second I-140 is filed while an initial I-140 is still pending; petitions where a labor certification on behalf of one immigrant is being used for a different immigrant (“substitution of beneficiaries”); and petitions where the employer is requesting that the USCIS ask for a duplicate labor certification from the Department of Labor (normally because the first labor certification was lost or never delivered to the employer).
For questions about particular cases, please contact the firm.
