Home
Others
Others News
H1B Visa Special Payment Programme to Be Suspended for 6 Months

H1B Visa Special Payment Programme to Be Suspended for 6 Months

By Indo-Asian News Service | Updated: 6 March 2017 17:46 IST

Click Here to Add Gadgets360 As A Trusted Source

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that in order to clear a backlog of regular H-1B visa applications, it is suspending for six months a programme that allowed some companies to jump to the head of the queue for quicker processing of H-1B visas by paying a special fee.

This is not a suspension of the H-1B visas, but only of the "Premium Processing", which allows companies to pay $1,125 (roughly Rs. 75,000) to go to the top of the line ahead of those waiting for applications to be processed, the USCIS said on Friday.

H1B Visa Changes: Government Said to Seek Data From Industry to Take Up Issue

"This temporary suspension will help us to reduce overall H-1B processing times", it added.

H-1B visas are temporary work visas for people with special qualifications and it is used mostly by Indian techies.

The "Premium Programme" suspension is to come into effect from April 3.

Under "Premium Processing", a decision is made on H-1B application within 15 days, while the regular applications take more than three months - period that has lengthened because of the surge in "Premium Processing" applications.

Comments

Get your daily dose of tech news, reviews, and insights, in under 80 characters on Gadgets 360 Turbo. Connect with fellow tech lovers on our Forum. Follow us on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News for instant updates. Catch all the action on our YouTube channel.