![]() This is a very useful, albeit expensive option, as normal case processing times are extremely lengthy-more than a year-for some case types." "Premium processing service ensures that USCIS will adjudicate a filing within 15 calendar days from its receipt," said Brian Coughlin, a partner in the Boston office of Fisher Phillips. "The government fee is presently $2,500. USCIS announced a final rule expanding premium processing, which is an expedited service now available only to petitioners filing for temporary workers and to certain employment-based green card petitioners. The shortfall in funding is another factor in exacerbating the backlogs and processing delays that will take years to recover from, she said. That's money that goes toward their budget and their operations." "Visa processing was shut down completely in the early months of the pandemic, and the funding loss to immigration agencies in fees during that time was billions of dollars. "When Biden came into office, he inherited immigration agencies with significant staffing shortages due to hiring freezes," Derentz said. border, that means the immigration agencies are having to pull resources, and that has implications for employment-based immigration." When the government is reacting to a humanitarian crisis, including on the U.S. "The Biden administration had a number of other policy issues they wanted to pursue, including reducing backlogs and rescinding Trump administration policies, but they have had to react to crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine. "An incoming administration may have its own priorities, but world events end up dictating what you actually work on," Melmed said. In previewing the Biden administration's business immigration priorities for the year, the trio spoke about the significant number of pending cases and increased processing times inherited from the previous administration, as well as problems that President Joe Biden could not have foreseen. ![]() Melmed spoke on a panel with firm colleagues Tiffany Derentz, senior counsel, and Eileen Lohmann, senior associate, at the SHRM Employment Law & Compliance Conference 2022 on March 28 in Washington, D.C. The Biden administration's efforts to speed up processing are positive but may not be sufficient to meet the challenges of the backlogs and the humanitarian crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine, which are siphoning away resources, said Lynden Melmed, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of global immigration law firm Berry Appleman & Leiden. It also announced new internal backlog reduction goals and progress toward improving access to employment authorization documents (EADs), which are crucial to foreign workers and the organizations that employ them. The agency issued a final rule expanding premium processing to additional employment-based immigration applications and petitions. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced March 29 new actions to help reduce caseload backlogs and improve processing times, problems that were recently exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and tightening resource constraints.
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