USCIS has introduced 5 new policies recently in order to tackle all the problematic scenarios of Backlog and ease the process of immigration. 

The United States has taken several stiff actions currently within the last few months in order to deal with the restoration of order to visa and immigration operations and cut down backlogs due to the pandemic. 

USCIS, abbreviated for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service has come up with the revelations of 5 new charges in the interest of all the people who aim to immigrate. These charges have a broad spectrum starting from premium processing to visa extensions for overseas students. 

H, E, and L Visa Holders and their Spouses’ Work Authorization 

1. The spouses with H, E, or L work permits are legalised to avail of a new handbook according to the new charges. 
2. E and L dependent spouses are not required to submit EAD applications anymore. 
3. Dependent spouses with H-4, E, or L status may be eligible for an automatic extension of their job authorizations and associated EADs with certain terms that state to submit the renewal application before its expiration and have an unexpired Form I-94 proving their current status.
4. EADs will be extended automatically until the end date on Form I-94 that indicates valid status, the approval or refusal of the EAD renewal application, or 540 days after the day the prior EAD expired.

J-1 Visa Extension

J-1 Visa can be availed by the students along with the graduates for up to 36 months owning STEM that is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The condition of the availation will be applied if they stand firm to initiate academic studies for not extending it longer than a month after completing STEM studies. 

Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security aka DHS has also expanded to inculcate 22 fields of study majorly for the STEM optional Practical Training (OPT) program 

0-1 Visa Guidelines

The officials have deliberately come up with a new pattern release for the expansion of guidelines for 0-1 work visas for individuals possessing some exceptional talent in some specific domains including science, arts, business, education, film, or tv production. 

Under this domain, the applicant is required to get to the US for resuming work in the areas of his abilities and capabilities to show his strength in the relative domain on a temporary basis which will be prolonged by national or international; acclaim or a record of extraordinary achievement in the motion picture and television industry. 

In case of dissimilarity of the criterion and the employment occurs then the new guideline will be taken into consideration to focus on proof production containing the equal value of that criteria to establish sustained awards, rewards, and recognitions. 

EB-1 and EB-2 Holders Premium Processing

Around 140 applicants owning the pending EB-1 and EB-2 petitions have led to the implementation of the premium processing. This expansion will be executed in several phases as mentioned below: 

1. 01 June 2022- Only those E13 multinational executive and manager petitions will be approved which are submitted using FORM I-907 and received on or before 01 January 2021.
2. 2, 01 July 20220- The application From I-907 for E13 multinational executive and management petitions received on or before 01 March 2021 and E21 NIWpetitions received on or before 01 June 2021 will be considered.

The premium processing will remain available for new Form I-140 employment applications, I-539 Forms for status changes, and I-765 EAD Forms throughout the stages of the extension. 

Authorised Work Period Extension

While the applications are still in process, the employment authorization and/or EADs of some renewal petitioners who have considered submitting their Form I-765, Application For Employment Authorization are tended towards the extension on an automatic basis. This broadly covers asylum, employment, family, TOS, and diversity applications. 

This deliberately results in the multiplied permitted work time from 180 to 540 days. This is done by the USCIS with the expectation of keeping the job vacancies at bay brought on by outstanding EAD renewal requests.