U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on September 15, 2022 that the agency will be implementing the next phase of the premium processing expansion program. Beginning on September 15, 2022, USCIS will accept premium processing upgrade requests for:
- E13 multinational executive and manager petitions received on or before January 1, 2022; and
- E21 National Interest Waiver (NIW) petitions received on or before February 1, 2022.
Petitioners who wish to request a premium processing upgrade for the above-listed Form I-140 classifications must file Form I-907, Request for Premium Processing. While the standard premium processing timeline for other immigrant and nonimmigrant processes is 15 calendar days, USCIS will have 45 days to take an adjudicative action on cases that request premium processing for these newly included Form I-140 classifications. To date, new (initial) Forms I-140 are not eligible for premium processing.
This is the third phase of the premium processing expansion program, which began on June 1, 2022. In phase one and phase two, the Service incrementally rolled out the premium processing upgrade option for pending EB-1 and EB-2 Petitions, beginning with those that have been pending or ‘in the queue’ for the longest period of time.
Our firm will continue to monitor the premium processing expansion program, and we remain at the ready to assist should you have questions about the impact of this policy, or should you wish to file a premium processing upgrade request for a currently pending EB-1 or EB-2 Petition filed prior to January 1, 2022 and February 1, 2022, respectively.
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