H-1B premium processing put on hold to handle massive work visa applications

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has put on hold the premium processing of H-1B visas, used mainly by Indian IT firms and professionals, so that it can focus on the massive number of applications for the work visas that start from April.

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Premium processing means that the application has to be processed within 15 days. USCIS receives 200,000 or more H-1B applications in the first week itself, and it gets difficult to process them within 15 days, which is why premium processing has to be held back.

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"I think the other thing to keep in mind is that these visas that they're applying for in April are not available until October. So what we do is we take them in, we process them, we organise them and then when we're ready, we let people file for the premium processing if they think that that's what they need," said Lori Scialabba, acting director of USCIS.

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"But the visas aren't available until October in any event, so it's really not delaying anybody from getting their visa when they're ready to pick up the visa," she added.

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It’s not the first time that premium processing has been suspended; this has been done earlier as well.

(Image source: Gadgets Now)