Texas Service Center Premium Processing Unit Sends Old I-140 Receipt and Approval Email Notices (Updated)

It may seem like an April Fools Day joke at first sight, but apparently it is not.  The Texas Service Center has been issuing and emailing premium processing receipt and approval notices for I-140 cases filed as far back as April 2010.

Example of I-140 Email Notice

The emails (delivered on April 1, 2011) look something like this:

Receipt Notices

The Texas Service Center has received the following
I-140 Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker
that had been filed under the Premium Processing Service:

Receipt Number: SRCXXXXXXXX
Date Received: 05/04/2010
Petitioner: PETITIONER, INC.
Priority Date: To Be Determined
Beneficiary: BENEFICIARY NAME

The Form I-797 Receipt Notice will follow in the mail.

Approval Notices

The Texas Service Center has approved the following
I-140 Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker
that had been filed under the Premium Processing Service:

Receipt Number: SRCXXXXXXXX
Petitioner: PETITIONER COMPANY, INC.
Priority Date: 06/01/09

Beneficiary: BENEFICIARY NAME
DOB: 0X/0X/71
Classification: E21

The form I-797 Approval Notice will follow in the mail.

Please note that this e-mail message is being sent as a
courtesy and cannot be used as evidence of nonimmigrant
status. Nor can this message be used as evidence to procure
an immigrant visa.

Pending and Approved I-140 Cases Seem to be Unaffected

These notices seem to be for cases previously filed with the TSC’s premium processing unit for which email receipt and approval notices were never issued.   Our office has handled a number of TSC filings, including in the relevant period of the past 12 months, and we have never received the (expected) I-140 receipt or approval notices.   Looks like they are arriving now, months after the cases have been processed and approved.  To our knowledge, paper I-140 receipt and approval notices from TSC have not been affected.

Explanation of the Old I-140 Email Notices

There has not been an official explanation by TSC or USCIS yet.  An unconfirmed theory for the reason behind this sudden deluge of I-140 receipt and approval email notices is a glitch with TSC’s email servers.  It is possible that the outgoing email server at TSC was misconfigured and was holding all outgoing I-140 receipt and approval notice emails.   In an interesting coincidence, the problem seems to have been “fixed” on April 1st.

Update from USCIS

April 1, 2011, 5:12 pm.   USCIS has more or less confirmed our theory that this sudden outburst of delayed emails was caused by software.

“The program that sends the automated emails on premium processing cases has been off-line for some time. A new version of the program was deployed today and it appears to be catching up on emails for older cases that didn’t receive any email notifications. For cases already completed, the email notifications can be disregarded.

We are working with our Information Technology colleagues to research and confirm if emails on recent / current cases are also being queued for generation.

Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.”