The H-1B and L-1 Punitive Super Fee Rears its Ugly Head Again - Cyrus D. Mehta, Michelle S. Velasco

Cyrus D. Mehta, Michelle S. Velasco, Jan. 16, 2016- "USCIS has yet to revise the Form I-129 and Form I-129S.  Outside of this announcement there are no other instructions on the USCIS website, and its page on H and L filing fees has not been updated.  Nevertheless, USCIS provides only a 30-day grace period post the January 12 announcement where USCIS will merely RFE for missing fees.  After February 11, 2016, USCIS will reject petitions with missing fees.

We accordingly provide the following practice pointers for employers affected by the new super fee to minimize the likelihood of RFEs and rejections or other processing delays:

• Employers should carefully complete the Form I-129, in particular Section 1, Numbers 1.d. and 1.d.1 of the H-1B and H-1B1 Data Collection and Filing Fee Exemption Supplement (page 19 of the 36-page I-129 form) and Numbers 4.a and 4.b of the L-1 supplement (page 22 of the 36-page I-129 form).
• Employers ought to make a careful count of their employees and their nonimmigrant statuses.
• When possible, employers should send filing fees in separate checks. In the event USCIS has received extra fees, it will simply return those extra checks to the employer without delaying the process.  This way, employers can avoid RFEs or rejections of their petitions."