USCIS announced an expansion of the premium processing service for certain pending Form I-140 petitions. The agency will now allow applicants who previously filed under EB-1C multinational executive and manager and EB-2 National Interest Waiver (NIW) categories to premium process their petitions. USCIS hopes that this change will help alleviate the lengthy processing delays in these immigrant visa categories.
The agency’s expansion will apply in the following phases:
- From June 1, 2022, USCIS will accept premium processing upgrade requests for EB-1C multinational executive ad manager petitions received on or before January 1, 2021.
- From July 1, 2022, USCIS will accept premium processing upgrade requests for EB-1C multinational executive and manager petitions received on or before March 1, 2021, and EB-2 NIW petitions received on or before June 1, 2021.
While this change is favorable, the improvement is marginal. USCIS has not yet extended premium processing for initially filed Form I-140 petitions in the EB-1C and EB-2 categories. The premium processing fee will be $2,500, and the processing time will be 45 days instead of the typical 15 days available for other eligible categories.
