{"id":260700,"date":"2017-09-20T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T20:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=260700"},"modified":"2017-09-20T06:00:19","modified_gmt":"2017-09-19T20:00:19","slug":"uscis-resumes-premium-processing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/uscis-resumes-premium-processing\/","title":{"rendered":"USCIS resumes premium processing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong>\u2014U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services resumed premium processing yesterday for all H-1B visa petitions subject to the fiscal year 2018 cap. <\/p>\n<p>The fiscal year 2018 cap has been set at 65,000 visas. <\/p>\n<p>Premium processing has also resumed for the annual 20,000 additional petitions that are set aside to hire workers with a U.S. master\u2019s degree or higher educational degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>H-1B visas provide skilled workers for a wide range of specialty occupations, including information technology, academic research, and accounting. <\/p>\n<p>When a petitioner requests the agency\u2019s premium processing service, USCIS guarantees a 15-day processing time. <\/p>\n<p>If the 15-calendar day processing time is not met, the agency will refund the petitioner\u2019s premium processing service fee and continue with expedited processing of the application. <\/p>\n<p>This service is only available for pending petitions, not new submissions, since USCIS received enough petitions in April to meet the fiscal year 2018 cap.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to yesterday\u2019s resumption of premium processing for H-1B visa petitions subject to the fiscal year 2018 cap, USCIS previously resumed premium processing H-1B petitions filed on behalf of physicians\u00a0under the Conrad 30 waiver program, as well as interested government agency waivers and for certain H-1B petitions that are not subject to the cap. <\/p>\n<p>Premium processing remains temporarily suspended for all other H-1B petitions, such as extensions of stay.<\/p>\n<p>USCIS plans to resume premium processing for all other remaining H-1B petitions not subject to the fiscal year 2018 cap as agency workloads permit. However, remaining petitioners may submit a request to expedite their application if they meet the specific agency criteria. USCIS reviews all expedite requests on a case-by-case basis, and requests are granted at the discretion of the office leadership.<\/p>\n<p>USCIS will release future announcements when we begin accepting premium processing for other H-1B petitions, not subject to the fiscal year 2018 cap.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on USCIS and its programs, visit uscis.gov. <strong>(PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON\u2014U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services resumed premium processing yesterday for all H-1B visa petitions subject&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[54,1238,119,1589],"class_list":["post-260700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-agency","tag-immigration-services","tag-uscis","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}