U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) emphasized the benefits of interfiling or transferring existing pending Adjustment of Status (AOS) applications to take advantage of available visas in the Second Preference Category. As such, they recommend interfiling for EB-3 to EB-2.
USCIS has proactively asked applicants to Interfile / Transfer the Underlying Basis of application, rather than filing a new application. In this update from USCIS, they acknowledge the high volume of AOS applications already received and the high number of visas available in this Fiscal Year. To utilize these visa numbers before the fiscal year ends in September 2022, USCIS is encouraging applicants who have pending Employment-Based Adjustment of Status application under the Third Employment Preference category (EB-3) and also have Second Preference Category (EB-2) I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker approvals to send a letter along with I-485 Supplement J to a specific address they designated to take these requests.
This is great news for applicants. They do not need to complete another AOS application, saving them money and time. Further, this will decrease the number of AOS applications USCIS has to process and instead help them focus on processing the cases that are still pending. USCIS is designating the office location provided to handle interfiling until September 2022. USCIS does not provide acknowledgment of interfiling. However, USCIS confirmed they will issue a receipt notice for the I-485 Supplement J. This allows applicants to track the transfer.
To see if you qualify for Interfiling, contact us at ILBSG. We put our extensive expertise and experience with changing the underlying basis of a visa submission and immigrant applications to work for you, to ensure you get the right advice.
