Following is USCIS email response to immigration lawyers comments on the proposed premium processing service on EB-5 Investor immigrant petitions.

Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:44:13 -0400
From: "USCIS Immigrant Investor Program" < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Dear Commenter,

USCIS thanks you for taking the time to submit your comments on the proposed offering of premium processing service for Form I-526.

The current cycle time is for I-526 petitions is 7.8 months. The cycle time goal for FY 2008 was 6 months. Because USCIS did not attain the 6-month cycle time goal, the agency trained additional adjudications officers and has consolidated Form I-526 petition workload at California Service Center in order to streamline adjudications.

The USCIS cycle time goal for Form I-526 petitions in Fiscal Year 2009 is 5 months. USCIS hopes to be below 5 months cycle time for I-526 petitions by the 2nd quarter of FY 2009. Thus, it is anticipated that the ability to request premium processing service after an I-526 petition has been pending for 3 months could save a petitioner approximately 45-60 days in adjudications time. USCIS can not offer premium processing service at the time of initial filing of the I-526 because this petition takes approximately 8 hours to adjudicate. USCIS is not certain at this time that the agency could effectively provide premium processing service in 15 calendar days. Until such time as the cycle time is minimized and the time it takes to review and adjudicate I-526s is streamlined, USCIS will continue to consider whether to make premium processing service available once the I-526 has been pending for at least 90 days.

If premium processing service is made available to I-526 petitions in the future, such an announcement would be made through publication of a Notice in the Federal Register. USCIS would then announce on its public
website the specifics of such eligibility.

If premium processing is made available for I-526s, USCIS will monitor the usage in regards to the cycle time to bring the ability to file premium processing for I-526s earlier in the process (pending for 60 days, 30 days, at initial filing).

Regards,

EB-5 Investor Program
USCIS Service Center Operations
Department of Homeland Security