Immigration Newsflash: The Premium Processing Fee
September 4, 2001
Many people dealing with the U.S. immigration process experience frustration and confusion as they confront a network of bureaucratic, underfunded and overworked government agencies that operate in a manner that is inconvenient at best, and catastrophic at worst. For those wishing that the entire process would move more quickly, there is now a partial solution – the premium processing fee. Here are the key points:
- If you pay a premium processing fee of U.S. $1000 in addition to the standard government filing fees, you enclose with your petition a properly completed Form I-907 (Request for Premium Processing Service) and premium processing is available for your particular visa petition, then the Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS") should respond to your nonimmigrant visa petition within 15 calendar days of receipt by the INS.
- If the INS does not respond to your case within 15 days after it receives your case, you will receive a full refund on your premium processing fee payment, and your case will still be processed expeditiously by the INS.
- The INS does not guarantee an approval of your petition, and reserves the right to request additional supporting evidence from the petitioner.
- Premium processing is not available for all cases. So far, only the following visa petitions are permitted to be filed with the premium processing fee: E-1/E-2, H-1B, H-2B, H-3, L-1, O-1/O-2, P, R, Q and TN.