Premium Processing for "EB-1" and "EB-2" Immigrant Petitions Available Today

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS") announced Friday, September 22, 2006 that premium processing would be made available for most Outstanding Researcher petitions filed in the Employment-Based First Preference ("EB-1"), the Employment-Based Second Preference ("EB-2") and "other workers"  in the Employment-Based Third Preference ("EB-3") as of today, September 25, 2006.

EB-2 petitions may be filed for persons who are offered employment in a position requiring an advanced degree, or the equivalent of an advanced degree, which is deemed to be a bachelor's degree followed by five years of progressive experience. The EB-3 "other workers" category is for "unskilled" positions requiring less than 2 years of experience.  To learn more about the requirements for these classifications, please visit our website at: http://www.mgplc.com//resources/green_cards.php.

Premium processing was made available for "professionals" and "skilled workers" in the EB-3 category on August 28, 2006 and has been available for most employment-based nonimmigrant (temporary) classifications since 2001.  

The USCIS guarantees that a petition filed with a request for premium processing, which requires an additional fee of $1,000, will be adjudicated within 15 days.  Within this period, the USCIS must either issue an approval notice, a notice of intent to deny, or a request for evidence. If it fails to do so, the $1,000 fee will be refunded. Without premium processing, adjudication of EB-1 and EB-2 petitions is currently taking between 6 and 10 months. 

Please note that due to quota backlogs for EB-3 petitions, and EB-2 petitions for persons from certain countries, as well as lengthy processing times for adjustment of status applications, requesting premium processing may not result in obtaining a green card more quickly in all cases.  Please contact our office should you have questions on whether premium processing would be advantageous in a specific case.

Goeschl & Reinhorn PLC's Business Immigration Alerts is an advertisement which provides a general description of the law; it is not intended to provide specific legal advice or to establish an attorney client relationship.

Copyright © 2005 Malcolm Goeschl PLC, 201 Filbert Street, Suite 401, San Francisco, CA 94133. Permission is granted to make and redistribute, without charge, copies of this entire document provided that such copies are complete and unaltered and identify Goeschl & Reinhorn PLC as the author. All other rights reserved.