AILA’s Advocacy Action Center allows you to advocate for legislative and policy reforms consistent with AILA’s principles and priorities.
Get InvolvedThe brand-new 18th edition of Kurzban's Immigration Law Sourcebook is now shipping.
Order NowLearn how to tackle challenges like finding and retaining affordable staff, working better in a hybrid or remote environment, when and how to raise fees, and much more.
Register NowAILALink puts an entire immigration law library at your fingertips! Search the AILALink database for all your practice needs—statutes, regs, case law, agency guidance, publications, and more.
AILA Doc. No. 21060936 | Dated June 9, 2021 | File Size: 802 K
Download the DocumentUSCIS updated policy guidance in its Policy Manual regarding the criteria used to determine whether a case warrants expedited treatment.
The Policy Manual states that:
On or after June 9, 2010, USCIS may expedite a benefit request if it falls under one or more of the following criteria or circumstance:
A company can demonstrate that it would suffer a severe financial loss if it is at risk of failing, losing a critical contract, or required to lay off other employees. For example, a medical office may suffer severe financial loss if a gap in a doctor’s employment authorization would require the medical practice to lay off its medical assistants.
The need to obtain employment authorization, standing alone, without evidence of other compelling factors, does not warrant expedited treatment. Job loss may be sufficient to establish severe financial loss for a person, depending on the individual circumstances. For example, the inability to travel for work that would result in job loss might warrant expedited treatment.
In addition, severe financial loss may also be established where failure to expedite would result in a loss of critical public benefits.
Not every circumstance that fits under one of the above listed categories or examples necessarily results in expedited processing.
USCIS generally does not consider expedite requests for petitions and applications where Premium Processing Service is available. However, a petitioner that is designated as a nonprofit organization by the IRS acting in furtherance of the cultural and social interests of the United States may request that the benefit it seeks be expedited without a fee, even if premium processing is available for that benefit. USCIS retains discretion to deny that request. The same petitioner may also request premium processing for the benefit like any other petitioner if it chooses to do so.
Expedited processing of benefit requests for noncitizens with final orders of removal or noncitizens in removal proceedings is coordinated between USCIS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
To increase efficiency in the review and processing of expedite requests, USCIS does not provide justification or otherwise respond regarding decisions on expedite requests.
[[To print the PDF on this page please use the print function in the PDF reader.]]
Cite as AILA Doc. No. 21060936.
Open the DocumentThe USCIS Policy Manual is the agency’s centralized online repository for USCIS’s immigration policies. Use this page to track changes to the USCIS Policy Manual.
View Policy Manual ChangesAILA provides liaison assistance to members in order to help resolve problem cases.
Request AssistanceAmerican Immigration Lawyers Association
1331 G Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20005
Copyright © 1993-
American Immigration Lawyers Association.
AILA.org should not be relied upon as the exclusive source for your legal research. Nothing on AILA.org constitutes legal advice, and information on AILA.org is not a substitute for independent legal advice based on a thorough review and analysis of the facts of each individual case, and independent research based on statutory and regulatory authorities, case law, policy guidance, and for procedural issues, federal government websites.