The US Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced a set of actions to increase the efficiency and reduce the backlogs in the entire legal immigration system of the United States. USCIS has a tremendous number of pending cases with COVID-19 pandemic and lack of resources due to the prior administration. To overcome this, USCIS will set new agency-wide backlog reduction goals, expand premium processing to additional form types, and work to improve timely access to employment authorization documents. These new implementation aims to reduce case loads and processing times, simultaneously ensuring fair and efficient services available to applicants and petitioners.
Reducing Processing Backlogs
USCIS is establishing new internal cycle time goals that will guide the backlog reduction efforts of the USCIS workers and will significantly affect the processing timelines. As cycle times improve, processing times will follow, and applicants and petitioners will receive decisions on their cases more quickly. USCIS will increase capacity, improve technology, and expand staffing to achieve these new goals by the end of FY 2023. Cycle times are what the operational divisions of USCIS use to gauge how much progress the agency is, or is not, making on reducing our backlog and overall case processing times.
Expand Premium Processing
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a final rule that aligns premium processing regulations with the Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act. The rule codifies premium processing fees and adjudication timeframes provided by Congress.
USCIS intends to begin implementing, through a phased approach, premium processing availability of Form I-539, Form I-765 and Form I-140 in fiscal year 2022. USCIS will also adhere to the congressional requirement that the expansion of premium processing must not cause an increase in processing times for regular immigration benefit requests.
Improving Access to EAD (Employment Authorization Documents)
In recent months, USCIS has begun streamlining many EAD processes, including extending validity periods for certain EADs and providing expedited work authorization renewals for healthcare and childcare workers. The temporary final rule aims to build on this progress and to ensure certain individuals will not lose their work authorization status while their applications are pending. This Temporary Final Rule is currently named “Temporary Increase of Automatic Extension Period of Employment Authorization and Documentation for certain Renewal Applicants”.
We will regularly update the blog as soon as any new updates are available.
Disclaimer
This article aims to provide new information concerning the premium processing service. This article, under no circumstances, acts as legal advice; therefore, for any immigration questions, please contact your Attorney or the Ahluwalia Law Offices, P.C. (Team ALO).
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