Speeding Up the Immigration Process in Emergency Situations: Expedited Processing

In any dealings with the U.S. immigration authorities, in particular U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), you can expect to encounter long waits and unexpected delays. This is a perennial source of frustration to foreign-born immigrants or visitors and their attorneys. In some cases, waiting months or years for an answer from the U.S. government can jeopardize the applicant's health, family stability, or overall immigration situation.

There are ways to request faster processing, but only in limited, truly urgent circumstances. (If everyone who felt their wait was too long were permitted to request faster service, there'd be a flood of such requests.) We'll describe what you can realistically do and expect here.

Bad News About USCIS Wait Times for Immigration Decisions

USCIS is perpetually overworked, and recent policy changes by the Trump Administration, often in the name of "extreme vetting," have only made the backlog more extreme. Practically everyone’s file spends a lot of time sitting in mail rooms or in officers’ “pending” trays before receiving the attention it deserves. (You can check the current USCISprocessing times for most types of applications; don't be surprised to see waits of many months or years, though the current figures are mere averages of all USCIS offices or service centers across the United States.)

The agency has gotten used to hearing consumer complaints along the lines of, “This is taking too long!” Its answer is usually, in effect, “Tell it to Congress, so they’ll allocate more resources our way.”

Unfortunately, there is not usually much you can do about the long waits if your situation is an ordinary one; that is, if you're in the same boat as other applicants, frustrated but not at great peril from the wait.

Nevertheless, if there is some reason that your application really should be given immediate attention—that is, put ahead of all the other waiting applications—you should ask for what is called "Expedited Processing." While requesting an expedite is best done with an experienced attorney’s help, we will describe what it involves below.

What About Requesting Premium Processing?

You might have heard about something called "Premium Processing," by which some immigration applicants can pay a huge fee to have USCIS make a decision on their application or petition within a short time, around two weeks. Unfortunately, this is a program of limited scope, and not available to most types of immigration applicants.

Thus far, it can be used only by employers sponsoring immigrants for work visas, certain F-1 students (categories C03A, C03B, and C03C) seeking work authorization on Form I-765, and some temporary visa holders applying to change status (to category E-1, E-2, E-3, F-1, F-2, J-1, J-2, H-1B, H-2B, H-3, L-2, M-1, M-2, O-1, O-2, P-1, P-2, P-3, Q-1, R-1, TN-1, TN-2) on Form I-539. However, USCIS has been expanding the categories of applicants allowed to request premium processing, so double check this information before giving up.

Who Can Request Expedited Processing From USCIS

Again, USCIS is in no way ready or willing to grant speedy processing to everyone. Thus you will need to make sure you can describe a true emergency need for help, such as when:

• a family member is seriously ill or dying in your home country and you need permission to leave the United States during your green card processing to visit them
• you are a member of the U.S. military who will be shipped overseas on a certain date, but you wish to bring your overseas fiancé to the United States in order to get married before that date, or
• you have a scheduled surgery or other major medical procedure coming up, with a long recovery period afterward, and might be unable to attend an important USCIS appointment if it is not scheduled before you are incapacitated.

Remember, USCIS will not (and cannot) change the laws to accommodate your personal needs. If, for example, you are waiting in line for a family- or employment-based visa based on a priority date, and the government has already given out the maximum number in your category that year but your priority date still is not current, nothing you can do will convince it to give you a visa out of next year’s allotment.

But if you are simply waiting for the U.S. government to act on something that it could theoretically do any time, but for its being backed up with excess work, you can legitimately ask for quicker attention.

How to Request Expedited Processing From USCIS

In order to make an expedited processing request, you will need to prepare a letter and send it to whichever USCIS office is currently handling your case file—most likely the last one from which you received correspondence.

The letter should include enough personal detail that the USCIS officer can locate your file (in particular, the petitioner and beneficiary’s names, beneficiary’s date of birth and alien number (A#) if any, and the case number from your receipt notice). The letter should also outline the reasons for the request, making sure to explain exactly what you need and what will go terribly wrong if the request is not granted.

Do your best to include proof of any claimed emergency, such as a letter from a doctor or a copy of your military orders. Convincing, authoritative documentation of the situation can make all the difference in whether USCIS is persuaded to approve an expedite.

Make a complete copy of the request for your files, and send it via certified mail or some courier service with tracking. (That's important in case USCIS loses track of your letter and you later need to reference it and prove you sent it.) If you don’t hear anything from USCIS within four weeks, send a follow-up letter or consult an attorney.

Should You Hire an Attorney?

To some degree, an attorney has no more power than you when it comes to requesting expedited processing or speeding up a case. Nevertheless, the attorney will know the latest on what is "normal" for applicants such as you, and can help place inquiries in the right place in the event that your case is truly taking longer than it should. See, for example, Is an Immigration Lawyer Worth the Cost?.