From www.immigrateusa.com:
There was much excitement when the USCIS recently began offering expedited premium processing for I-140 immigrant worker petitions for certain employment-based visa cases, including extraordinary ability (EB-1), advanced degree workers (EB-2), and professionals (EB-3).
What followed, though, was a mass of sketchy Requests for Evidence (RFE) from the USCIS Nebraska Service Center (NSC), which handles these petitions along with the Texas Service center (TSC). These RFEs seemed to demand documentation that petitioners had already submitted and were unclear as to the deficiencies in the documentation. It appeared that officers at the center were neck-deep in expedited handling I-140 cases, which are often document-laden, and needed to buy themselves some time. Premium Processing requires an extra $1,000 filing fee and the submission of form I-907 by the petitioner or attorney. The petitioner has three months to respond to the RFE and, once the response is received by the service center, the officer is required to continue handling the response in an expediotious manner.
The NSC Liaison of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) took up the issue in December 2006, one month after CIS added I-140 EB-1 extraordinary ability petitions to the premium processing list. The AILA liaison gathered examples of questionable RFEs from immigration lawyers around the country.
The USCIS yesterday released a Q&A on business immigration issues. In it, the agency acknowledged that there is indeed a problem with deficient RFEs for I-140s. They stated that "we are training officers to summarize the evidence provided with the filing and articulate in the RFEs how it is deficient. You should see improvements in the quality of the RFEs in thevery near future."
They also clarified that NSC does not have a separate Premium Processing team, as many believe. Rather, officers are trained and assigned by visa classification and adjudicate both regularly filed and premium processing cases that fall within their classification.
Finally, the USCIS agreed that if the NSC forwards a petition to the TSC, the TSC is expected to honor the earlier date of receipt of the case by the NSC. This difference of even a few days can have a significant impact on the H-1B worker, for example, who is at the end of her fifth year in H status and has timely filed her I-140 (without labor certification) with the NSC, which allows her to extend her H status through to when she is eventually granted permanent residency. The USCIS advised Petitioners and lawyers to contact the TSC directly about honoring the earlier NSC receipt date.
There was much excitement when the USCIS recently began offering expedited premium processing for I-140 immigrant worker petitions for certain employment-based visa cases, including extraordinary ability (EB-1), advanced degree workers (EB-2), and professionals (EB-3).
What followed, though, was a mass of sketchy Requests for Evidence (RFE) from the USCIS Nebraska Service Center (NSC), which handles these petitions along with the Texas Service center (TSC). These RFEs seemed to demand documentation that petitioners had already submitted and were unclear as to the deficiencies in the documentation. It appeared that officers at the center were neck-deep in expedited handling I-140 cases, which are often document-laden, and needed to buy themselves some time. Premium Processing requires an extra $1,000 filing fee and the submission of form I-907 by the petitioner or attorney. The petitioner has three months to respond to the RFE and, once the response is received by the service center, the officer is required to continue handling the response in an expediotious manner.
The NSC Liaison of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) took up the issue in December 2006, one month after CIS added I-140 EB-1 extraordinary ability petitions to the premium processing list. The AILA liaison gathered examples of questionable RFEs from immigration lawyers around the country.
The USCIS yesterday released a Q&A on business immigration issues. In it, the agency acknowledged that there is indeed a problem with deficient RFEs for I-140s. They stated that "we are training officers to summarize the evidence provided with the filing and articulate in the RFEs how it is deficient. You should see improvements in the quality of the RFEs in thevery near future."
They also clarified that NSC does not have a separate Premium Processing team, as many believe. Rather, officers are trained and assigned by visa classification and adjudicate both regularly filed and premium processing cases that fall within their classification.
Finally, the USCIS agreed that if the NSC forwards a petition to the TSC, the TSC is expected to honor the earlier date of receipt of the case by the NSC. This difference of even a few days can have a significant impact on the H-1B worker, for example, who is at the end of her fifth year in H status and has timely filed her I-140 (without labor certification) with the NSC, which allows her to extend her H status through to when she is eventually granted permanent residency. The USCIS advised Petitioners and lawyers to contact the TSC directly about honoring the earlier NSC receipt date.