USCIS: “Changes to Direct Filing Addresses for Form I-129 Petitions”

Effective October 12, 2017, US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has changed the direct filing addresses for certain petitioners submitting Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker. Petitioners must now file Form I-129 according to the “state where the company or organization’s primary office is located.” Petitioners previously filed Form I-129 based on where the beneficiary’s temporary employment or training was located. Additionally, petitioners located in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas will now file Form I-129 at the California Service Center. 

UCCIS publishes the list of direct filing addresses for Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, on their website. Beginning November 11, 2017, USCIS may reject Form I-129s that are filed at the incorrect service center, so it’s recommended to verify (and double-check) the correct address before submitting.

USCIS: Change of Filing Addresses and Workload Transfers

Every so often, US Citizenship & Immigration Service Centers—located in California, Nebraska, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia—experience lengthy backlogs and delays in processing cases. To balance workloads and “promote timely processing,” USCIS occasionally changes filing addresses for certain petitions to direct cases away from the service centers experiencing these significant delays, as well as transfers cases from center to center. USCIS announced this week they are doing both.  

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New York Times: “Visa Applications Pour In by Truckload Before Door Slams Shut”

Yesterday, Monday, April 3, was the first day that US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) began accepting H-1B specialized knowledge cap petitions for fiscal year 2018. At the USCIS California Service Center in Laguna Niguel, delivery trucks carrying H-1B petitions began arriving at dawn. While the official USCIS count of total petitions received won’t be released for at least a few weeks, many immigration experts are predicting more H-1B petitions will be filed than in the previous years because many are concerned of possible changes to the H-1B program under the Trump administration. For the last few years, USCIS has received so many petitions that they’ve closed the filing period after only one week. Last year USCIS received over 236,000 H-1B petitions in the filing period.

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Reminder: NSC Now Accepting Certain H-1B and H-1B1 Petitions

Effective July 1, 2016, the Nebraska Service Center (NSC) is accepting certain H-1B and H-1B1 (Chile/Singapore Free Trade) petitions which were previously required to be filed at other service centers. The NSC is now accepting H-1B and H-1B1 I-129 petitions if the petitioner requests a “continuation of previously approved employment without change from the same employer” in response to Question 2 and also requests that US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) “notify the office in Part 4,” “extend the stay of the beneficiary,” or “extend the status…based on a free trade agreement” in response to Question 4.

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