Dear IMG friends!
USCIS announced to suspend H1B premium processing from April 3rd. However, most programs, rely this pathway to get their intern to start on time, and H1B visa is an important factor when IMGs make ranking order list. We hope everyone potentially affected by this announcement will join us to email ECFMG ASAP and get their attention and support for "expedited processing", which remains an option.
We should know several things about this issue and include them in our emails to ECFMG. Programs may not have strong incentive and/or capacity to push it forward. Given the recent NRMP email, which granted higher flexibility with waiver to programs, matched IMGs may lose the matched spot if we can’t begin our training on time due to delayed visa processing at USCIS.
1. We only have extremely limited time for us/programs to prepare and submit H1B application before April 3rd. Many states such as FL, IL, MA require a valid state license/training permit should be obtained and included in h1b visa application. This process may take 2 weeks to 2 months. Without expedite processing, it might take up to 2 months after Match Day to get a state license and then
additional 6+ months for H1b visa via normal non-expedited processing.
2.
USCIS will still provide expedited processing in limited situations (see original USCIS
announcement, “Requesting Expedited Processing” part) if applicants can demonstrate that one or more of the some criteria have been met. No.4 criterion should be met given our work is related to patient care: 4) Nonprofit organization whose request is in furtherance of the cultural and social interests of the United States.
https://www.uscis.gov/forms/expedite-criteria
We therefore need support from ECFMG and programs to prove that our H1B visa application meets the criterion - social interests of the US, since many programs willing to sponsor H visa take care a lot of underserved patients and our work is related to patient care.
3. Without expedited processing, we
may have to be forced to use J visa, which may not be feasible for IMGs from certain countries. A lot of IMGs rank their ROL based on programs' visa policy in the very beginning.
4.
Early action is recommended to bring ECFMG’s attention to this. ECFMG will need time to communicate with NRMP, UCSIS, and programs regarding this issue. Waiting till the match day when results come out will potentially lose one week of time for ECFMG to handle it, and even H1b sponsoring - programs may begin to notify us to use J visa at that time.
We encourage IMGs who are potentially affected to email ECFMG at
[email protected] to bring early attention to them. Feel free to use/modify the following email template.
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Subject: Regarding suspension of H1b visa premium processing of USCIS and support for Expedited Processing
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am an IMG from XX country. My ECFMG id is XXX. I'm very concerned about the USCIS recent suspension of H1b premium processing. Most programs, especially those in underserved area, rely this pathway to get their intern to start on time on H1b visa. Without expedited processing, IMG applicants may have to use J visa, which may not be feasible for IMGs from certain countries. A lot of IMGs rank their ROL based on programs' visa policy, but they could never expect this before ROL submission.
There is extremely limited time for us/programs to prepare and submit H1B application before April 3rd. Many states such as FL, IL, MA require that a valid state license/training permit should be obtained and included in h1b visa application. This process may take 2 weeks to 2 months. Without expedite processing, it might take up to 2 months after Match Day to get a state license and then additional 6+ months for H1b visa via normal non-expedite processing)
USCIS will still provide expedited processing in limited situations if applicants can demonstrate that one or more of criteria have been met. We believe many of our situation should meet criterion 4): Nonprofit organization whose request is in furtherance of the cultural and social interests of the United States.
https://www.uscis.gov/forms/expedite-criteria (See USCIS announcement, “Requesting Expedited Processing” part)
We sincerely wish that ECFMG would communicate with USCIS and programs regarding this issue, and notify programs that expedited processing of H1b remains a possible option. Documents from ECFMG demonstrating that our H1b visa application meets the criterion - social interests of the US will be highly appreciated.
Thank you for your attention!
