USCIS has suspended in-person services from March 18, 2020, until at least April 1, 2020, to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. During this period, the agency will not conduct in-person adjustment of status or naturalization interviews, naturalization ceremonies, or Application Support Center biometrics appointments.
USCIS field offices will send cancellation notices to applicants with scheduled appointments and naturalization ceremonies impacted by the closure. Asylum interviews will be cancelled and automatically rescheduled with a new date and time. USCIS will automatically reschedule all cancelled biometrics appointments once its normal operations resume.
USCIS will continue to perform duties that do not involve contact with the public. This means that USCIS Service Centers, H-1B Cap Registration, and E-Verify services are currently continuing per normal operations. Similarly, Immigration related services provided by the U.S. Department of Labor such as labor condition applications, prevailing wage requests and PERM labor certifications are not currently affected by this suspension. However, delays in processing times are likely and immigration applications and petitions filed by mail with USCIS Service Centers could be impacted if delivery services such as USPS, FedEx or UPS are delayed or suspended.
Additionally, USCIS announced the temporary suspension of premium processing service for fiscal year 2021 cap-subject H-1B petitions.
Squire Patton Boggs will continue to monitor and provide updates regarding USCIS operations, as they could be further limited or suspended at a later time due to COVID-19.