US suspends premium processing of H1-B petitions

This is bad news for the Indian IT industry. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services on Friday announced that it will temporarily suspend its premium processing for all H1-B petitions from April 3 onwards.

A press release issued by the USCIS stated that the temporary suspension would help the administration, reduce the overall H1-B processing times. It is also stated that the USCIS will be able to process long-pending petitions which it has been unable to process due to large number of incoming petitions.

It is however not clear until when the process will be suspended. It is likely that the suspension would remain in force for another six months. As a result of this petitioners will not be able to file Form I-907 to request for Premium Processing Service and for Form I-129 which files a petition for a non-immigrant worker which requests the H-1B nonimmigrant classification. This move is likely to hit several businesses. There are at least 70 per cent Indians who receive non-immigrant visas.

OneIndia News