LATEST NEWS ALERT: PPS Delays and Broader Holds on Certain Applicants - (03/03/26)
In recent weeks, visa processing delays at U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) appear to be causing many Premium Processed petitions to be exceeding the promised window of 15 business days, some by quite a significant amount of time. In some cases, USCIS is not providing any information to acknowledge or explain the delay. When reaching out with a case number, some petitioners have been told that the case is “currently pending adjudication” without a projected completion date.
One reason for this delay appears to stem from an under-reported policy memo from January, which calls for placing “a hold on all pending benefit applications, for aliens listed in Presidential Proclamation (PP) 10998, Restricting and Limiting the Entry of Foreign Nationals To Protect the Security of the United States, pending a comprehensive review, regardless of entry date.” The ambiguity of the memo led many to believe the holds would apply only to permanent residency applications, but it seems this policy may be applying to all I-129 petitions as well, which includes O and P guest artists. Therefore, anyone who was born in or is a national of any of the listed 39 countries could be cause for an entire petition to be held up. Depending on how USCIS treats these security checks, they may not be required to inform the petitioner or return a PPS fee even when premium service is being suspended.
It is unclear whether USCIS will honor a request to withdraw specific beneficiaries from an already-filed group petition, therefore U.S.-based petitioners who are caught in a lengthy processing hold despite filing via PPS may wish to withdraw the petition in question and refile a new one without beneficiaries that would be affected by the memo.