Travelling with H1-B and H4 while AOS is pending

[Peckheim]

My wife and I applied for AOS with PD Nov 1st. We are also H visa holders with expiration date May 20th 2019 on our visa stamps. My wife needs to travel to Italy in May but we are not sure if we will receive AP travel docs in time. So we are planning to travel under H visa and renew the visa when in Italy (my university is filing an extension as they are suggesting it is safer to maintain H status till we don't get the green card).

If we renew the VISA stamp in Italy in the summer, will that be OK and not affect our AOS? Did someone has similar problem? Should we leave the country before May 20th (H visa expiration date) or it does not matter whether we leave before or after May 20th?

[chock]

I believe your AOS application will be considered abandoned. You will have to reapply once you've abandoned the AOS application, and I believe there is a risk you may have to go through consular processing if the risk of no readmission materializes.

https://www.uscis.gov/greencard/while-application-is-pending

" If You Need to Travel

If you need to leave the United States temporarily while your Form I-485 is pending, please see the instructions for Form I-131, Application for Travel Document, for more information. Generally, if you have a pending Form I-485 and you leave the United States without an advance parole document, you will have abandoned your application. For further information, see our Travel Documents page.
"

[Enub4]

Sometimes the status and visa stamp doesn't match, do you know when your H status expire?

If your H status doesn't expire the same day as your visa stamp, then you can still be legal even when your visa stamp expired. I guess you could travel abroad but can't come back unless you get a new visa stamp (only a handful of visas could be used to travel abroad while on AOS) and it doesn't matter if you travel before/after expiration as long as your status still valid.

Note: no lawyer, no experience, only reading information about immigration, visas and travel, I could be wrong until proven otherwise.

[Sandracandrade]

My husband has TPS and our case for AOS was received 3/13/2019. We went to Mexico on 4/3/2019 and he returned without any issues however he has Advance Parole through his TPS until the end of May 2019 .

[Peckheim]

Thanks all. Chock, H visa and L visa are an exception to the rules above. They allow to travel while AOS is pending. Enub4, you have a good point BUT my status expiration is the same as the visa expiration. That is why I believe it is important to leave earlier than it expires while you are still on STATUS. Then renew the VISA in Italy.