U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) resumed premium processing today for H-1B visa petitions subject to the Fiscal Year year (FY) 2018 cap.
This is welcome news for those F-1 students with a pending change of status to H-1B who would have potentially lost their cap gap employment authorization on October 1st.
If your H-1B petition filed in the April lottery is still pending, your employer may file a request to upgrade to premium processing. Once filed, the petition should be adjudicated within 15 days (note this means the petition will either be approved, denied, or an Request for Evidence issued within 15 days).
If your case has already been issued a Request for Evidence that has not been responded to yet, I normally advise my clients to respond to the RFE first, ensure that it is received by USCIS, and then file the upgrade request.
Premium processing remains temporarily suspended for all other H-1B petitions, such as extensions of stay, transfers, and amendments.
USCIS plans to resume premium processing for all other remaining H‑1B petitions not subject to the FY 2018 cap, as agency workloads permit.