EffectiveTuesday March 12, 2019, USCISwill again allow premium processing on all H-1B petitions. While this is welcome news, the window ofupgrading H-1B petitions to the Premium Processing Service may be short. In 2018, USCIS suspended premium processing onH-1B transfers and amendments effective September 11, 2018.
Theonly exceptions to the September 2018 USCISpremium processing suspension were for H-1B extensions (i) with thesame employer or (ii) H-1Bs for cap-exempt institutions, such as Universitiesor research organizations.
Accordingly,if you have a pending H-1B petition, you may only have a few months to upgradeto premium processing. It is impossibleto say what USCIS will do because the USCIS often makes these announcementswith very little warning. Conceivably,the USCIS may not even wait until September to suspend premium processing on H-1Btransfers and amendments.
Although no announcementhas been made, it is expected that USCIS will not allow April 1, 2019 cap-subjectH-1B petitions to take advantage of premium processing.