The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services officially announced today that due to the ongoing COVID-19 National Emergency, the office will accept all benefit forms and documents (including the Form I-129) with reproduced original signatures. This will only apply to submissions dated March 21, 2020 and onward.

A reproduced signature means that a document may be “photocopied, or similarly reproduced provided that the copy must be of an original document containing an original handwritten signature, unless otherwise specified.”

For the purpose of forms that do require an original signature, USCIS has deemed reproduced original signatures as acceptable for the duration of the national emergency. Users are advised to retain copies of original documents with the required original “wet” signature, as USCIS may still request these documents at any time.

In addition, the USCIS has announced temporary suspension of all premium processing for Form I-129 and I-140 submissions until further notice. As of March 20, 2020, no new requests for premium processing will be accepted. Submissions that were already made using premium processing and did not receive an agency action on the case within 15-days will be refunded. More information on this temporary suspension can be found on the USCIS website.