"This temporary suspension will help us to reduce overall H-1B processing times. By temporarily suspending premium processing, we will be able to:
Process long-pending petitions, which we have currently been unable to process due to the high volume of incoming petitions and the significant surge in premium processing requests over the past few years; and
Prioritize adjudication of H-1B extension of status cases that are nearing the 240 day mark. "
You'd think the $1,225 paid for every premium processing request would allow them to hire more people to tackle the backlog, but I guess not, maybe they just reroute that money elsewhere :P
> USCIS is funded primarily by immigration and naturalization benefit fees charged to applicants and petitioners. Fees collected from individuals or organizations filing immigration benefit requests are deposited into the Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA). Congress created the IEFA in 1988, establishing the authority to recover the full cost of immigration benefit processing. This account represents approximately 95 percent of USCIS’ fiscal year (FY) 2016 total budget authority. The remaining budget authority comes from two other mandatory fee accounts and appropriated funding for the E-Verify program.
still, the uscis budget is not even a drop in the bucket:
There's a federal hiring freeze.
I guess if they were planning to use the premium processing fees to hire a bunch of extra people for the April application deadline the hiring freeze will stymie that, which just shows how stupid a general hiring freeze is.