US: Faster Processing For Certain Green Card & Visa Categories

The US Senate’s new bill recently allowing its immigration agency USCIS to quickly process more visa categories and certain green card categories. The new bill passed in the senate HR 8377 provided funding allows the USCIS to charge more for the premium processing of visas.

The Covid-19 pandemic has force stopped the USCIS activities, whose funding is solely depending on the fee income by visa applications. The bill was passed by the US house of representatives and was signed into law by the US President Donald Trump on Thursday. Earlier, it was blocked by a US Federal court on Tuesday. Thus with an increase in processing fees from October 2, the processing is going to be faster for many visas and certain green card categories.

In the current processing system, the H4 visa holders had to wait up to six months due to which the H4 EAD applicants cannot work during the time of processing. But with the premium processing available with the new bill, it is going to become faster for their visa to process. The processing time would come under 30 days now. The fees would be somewhere under $1500.

The bill also is expanding premium processing to green cards under the EB-1C category and many applicants from India who are in the US on an L-1 Visa are to get benefitted from this. The premium processing fee amount for H-1B and L-1 Visas has been increased from $1440 to up to $2500. However, the normal processing fee structure is not changed.