The United States has resumed the rapid processing of H-1B work visas in all categories subject to the limit set by Congress five months after its temporary suspension to handle a large number of work visa applications among Indian professionals of you.
The H-1B visa is a nonimmigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical knowledge. Technology companies rely on it to hire tens of thousands of employees every year.
Processing of H-1B visa premiums was suspended in April to handle the huge fever of new requests.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) resumed premium processing on September 18 for all applications for H-1B visas subject to the 2018 Fiscal Year (FY) cap, a statement said.
The cover of FY 2018 has been set at 65,000. The premium processing has also been restarted for the additional 20,000 additional requests that are reserved to hire workers with a higher education degree from the United States, he said.
When a petitioner requests the agency’s premium processing service, USCIS guarantees a processing time of 15 days.
“If the processing time of 15 calendar days is not met, the agency will reimburse the petitioner’s premium processing service fee and continue expedited processing of the request,” USCIS said.
He added that the service is only available for pending requests, not for new requests, as USCIS received enough requests in April to meet the 2018 cap.
In addition to the resumption of processing of H-1B premiums through FY 2018 capped petitions, USCIS previously restarted H-1B premium processing requests submitted on behalf of physicians under the Conrad 30 exemption program, as well as waivers from interested government agencies and certain H-1B requests that are not subject to the cap.
“The processing of premiums remains temporarily suspended for all other H-1B requests, such as stay extensions,” the USCIS said, adding that it plans to resume processing premiums for all other remaining H-1B petitions not subject to the cap of FY 2018, the workload of the agency allows it.
