Today USCIS announced that effective Tuesday, March 12, 2019, Premium Processing service will resume for all H-1B petitions. Premium Processing service was previously suspended by USCIS back in March 2018 for all FY2019 cap cases and in August 2018, it expanded and extended the suspension or more types of H-1B petitions. Since then, the Service has been incrementally restoring premium processing Service with the full restoration taking effect March 12, 2019.
In their announcement, USCIS provides guidance on where to submit premium processing request for pending cases that may have received a Request for Evidence and/or been transferred to a different Service center.
Finally, the new announcement did not specifically address FY2020 H-1B cap petitions. Given that USCIS has suspended premium processing for these cases late in the filing season in past years, it is possible that they could issue follow up or clarifying guidance suspending the availability of this service for FY2020 H-1B cap subject petitions. As such, D&S encourages FY2020 H-1B cap petitioners and beneficiaries to remain cautiously optimistic with respect to the availability of premium processing service for this year’s H-1B cap.
D&S is monitoring the situation and will provide updates as they become available.