The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced today that the suspension of premium processing for nonimmigrant religious worker (R-1) cases will continue at least until January 7, 2009.  The original suspension of premium processing for these cases was announced on January 4, 2008.

Premium processing is a faster processing service for certain types of cases.  By paying an additional $1000 to the Immigration Service, applicants can get their cases processed within 15 days.  USCIS originally suspended premium processing for religious worker cases since it could no longer guarantee a 15 day turnaround as a result of extensive background checks and the time it takes to process them. 

As more information becomes available, we will post it here at www.bashyamspiro.com.