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Hi everybody,
I'm from Turkey and I did a PhD in mechanical engineering in the US using the F1 visa. After completing my PhD, I got a job at a company in Connecticut, luckily won the H1B (change of status) in the lottery and have been working using the H1B visa since October 2020. My first three years of H1B ends in September 2023 and my boss is telling me that renewing it for another 3 years is a very simple process for them.
My main concern is that I haven't been to Turkey since I started working and I want to take some time off for a vacation. However if I go to Turkey, I have to attend an appointment at the US Consulate in Istanbul to get the H1B visa stamp. During my PhD, I had applied for and received the F1 visa twice, in 2013 and 2018. In both cases, I had to go through the administrative processing (AP) and left the consulate with the yellow paper. Luckily, the AP took about 10 days in both cases. Now I fear that I might have to go through AP again when I visit the US Consulate in Istanbul for an H1B visa this time and I can't help thinking ' What if the AP takes months this time and my company doesn't want to wait for me anymore and they terminate my employment?' My first question would be about this option. Would you agree with me that this is a risky path that could cost me my job in the US? Or would you say that this time it is different because I have already been working in the US using the H1B visa and the consulate will just provide a hard copy confirmation of what exists in the electronic records. I might be talking nonsense but just trying to be optimistic as you might imagine..
I then asked around what I can do and was suggested by many friends and colleagues to apply for a green card and had my profile (Gscholar, citations etc) examined by a law firm. They evaluated me to be a strong candidate for EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver). When I told them about my desire to gain the freedom to be able to travel to Turkey and enter the US upon my return and asked them how long it would take me to reach this state, they said that the Advanced Parole document would satisfy my international travel needs and the total time to get it would be around 19.5 months (=2months for me to get the documents ready for I-140 + 13.5months for Texas Service Center to process my I-140 case + 1month for me to prepare the I-485 application + 3months for the Advanced Parole document to be issued). I found 19.5 months extremely long and asked them if there was any way the duration could be shortened. Their answer this time was concurrent filing, i.e. filing I-140, I-485 and I-131 altogether but I haven't asked them about how long this option would take.
I wanted to create this topic to ask for your recommendations on how I can reach a state where I can travel to Turkey and enter the US upon my return. I would be so happy if you can also specify the total approximate time that it would take me to achieve this based on your recommendations.
Thank you very much for reading my story and for your replies in advance!
I'm from Turkey and I did a PhD in mechanical engineering in the US using the F1 visa. After completing my PhD, I got a job at a company in Connecticut, luckily won the H1B (change of status) in the lottery and have been working using the H1B visa since October 2020. My first three years of H1B ends in September 2023 and my boss is telling me that renewing it for another 3 years is a very simple process for them.
My main concern is that I haven't been to Turkey since I started working and I want to take some time off for a vacation. However if I go to Turkey, I have to attend an appointment at the US Consulate in Istanbul to get the H1B visa stamp. During my PhD, I had applied for and received the F1 visa twice, in 2013 and 2018. In both cases, I had to go through the administrative processing (AP) and left the consulate with the yellow paper. Luckily, the AP took about 10 days in both cases. Now I fear that I might have to go through AP again when I visit the US Consulate in Istanbul for an H1B visa this time and I can't help thinking ' What if the AP takes months this time and my company doesn't want to wait for me anymore and they terminate my employment?' My first question would be about this option. Would you agree with me that this is a risky path that could cost me my job in the US? Or would you say that this time it is different because I have already been working in the US using the H1B visa and the consulate will just provide a hard copy confirmation of what exists in the electronic records. I might be talking nonsense but just trying to be optimistic as you might imagine..
I then asked around what I can do and was suggested by many friends and colleagues to apply for a green card and had my profile (Gscholar, citations etc) examined by a law firm. They evaluated me to be a strong candidate for EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver). When I told them about my desire to gain the freedom to be able to travel to Turkey and enter the US upon my return and asked them how long it would take me to reach this state, they said that the Advanced Parole document would satisfy my international travel needs and the total time to get it would be around 19.5 months (=2months for me to get the documents ready for I-140 + 13.5months for Texas Service Center to process my I-140 case + 1month for me to prepare the I-485 application + 3months for the Advanced Parole document to be issued). I found 19.5 months extremely long and asked them if there was any way the duration could be shortened. Their answer this time was concurrent filing, i.e. filing I-140, I-485 and I-131 altogether but I haven't asked them about how long this option would take.
I wanted to create this topic to ask for your recommendations on how I can reach a state where I can travel to Turkey and enter the US upon my return. I would be so happy if you can also specify the total approximate time that it would take me to achieve this based on your recommendations.
Thank you very much for reading my story and for your replies in advance!
