We reported in later July that USCIS will start premium service for EB3 I-140 sometime in August. USCIS announced on August 18 that the premium service for EB3 I-140 is available from August 28.

Under premium processing service, USCIS guarantees it will process these applications within 15 calendar days for an additional processing fee of $1,000. It will issue either an approval notice, or where appropriate, a notice of intent to deny, a request for evidence or open an investigation for fraud or misrepresentation, within 15 calendar days of receipt. If the petition is not processed within 15 calendar days, USCIS will refund the $1,000 fee and continue to process the request as part of the Premium Processing Service.

Starting on August 28, USCIS will begin accepting Premium Processing requests from petitions involving two employment-based immigration categories within EB3: EB3-Professionals and EB-3 Skilled Workers. Premium processing is not available to “other workers” in the EB-3 category for jobs that do not require two years of education, training or experience.

In addition, USCIS will release a new Request for Premium Processing Services form (Form I-907), to include expansion of Premium Processing Service to the newly designated classifications. All requests for Premium Processing Service received on August 18, 2006 or later must be filed using the new Form I-907. The new form is available from August 21 on the USCIS website at http://www.uscis.gov.

However, premium service for EB1 and EB2 will not be available immediately. It’s unclear when they would be rolled out by USCIS. We will monitor this important immigration issue and provide more information to you as soon as it is available.

Then, who can benefit from this premium service? How? The addition of this new premium processing will be a valuable tool for many people, especially those with an urgent timeframe to change status. For example, a great benefit of using premium processing for I-140 is to avail oneself of §104(c) of AC21 to obtain 3-year extensions of H1B status. Under the new policy, if a beneficiary has an approved I-140 petition but cannot complete the green card process due to retrogression, he can apply for a 3-year extension of H1B status at the end of the six-year H1B limitation period.