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  • Passport I-94 expired H1B valid

    Hi all, need some serious suggestion from you guys. I have been fighting with this issue for the past couple months and it's still not solved and now it's getting worse. Okay here's the story:

    I traveled back to my home country last christmas with a valid H1B and valid visa stamp. My visa stamp expired 01/25/17. My passport will be expire 08/25/17. So when i came back to US, the CBP officer at the airport stamped the I-94 on my passport with a expiration date of 02/25/17 because they require my passport to be at least 6 month valid while i'm in US. The CBP officer suggested me to get a new passport before the passport I-94 expiration date and get back to the local CBP office and they will revised the expiration date for me. Truth is they refused to do so after i renewed my passport here before 02/25/17. I was told to get out of the country immediately and came back to get a new entry stamp to renew my I-94 expiration date. The issue is my visa stamp expired at the time so i will need to reapply and interview for the visa if i travel out of the country, which takes about 2-3 weeks at my home country and my employer don't want that happen. At the time, the lawyer of my company tried to help us solve this issue. He claimed that i should still have 180 days after 02/25/17, kind of grace period to solve this issue, but after 02/25/17, I would be accumulating illegal presence in United States, so the longer I stayed here, the more serious issue would be. Therefore, he re-applied H1B visa with premium processing for me. The lawyer is trying to request USCIS change the date on my old H1B to start from the I-94 expiration date 02/25/17 and get a new three-year period H1B. He sent out the package before 4/1 but the bad news was the package got rejected and delivered back to the lawyer on a day after 4/1. The lawyer then mailed out the package again to USCIS. This time they accepted the package and cash all the checks but they refused to process the application under premium service since it's bypass 4/1 at the time. We got the receipt notice saying USCIS received the package on 04/19/17 and sent out the notice on 05/02/17. Now the lawyer came back to us and suggest that I should go back to my home country to renew my visa and get the new i-94 date, since the regular processing might take 2-6 months and it might pass the 180 period at the time they approve my application. He thinks it won't take much risk to renew visa in my home country even though i have accumulating about 3 months of illegal presence here, since I'm not working for a IT consulting firm, it's not my first time renew H1B visa, my work duty and my major is not sensitive ones that they would be checking into, and the company has been trying to solve this issue after the I-94 expiration date because we have the new H1B receipt to prove this. With all that, he thinks there will be very rare chance that my home country reject my visa renewal and not let me come back.

    Here's my question:
    1. I have never heard that reapplying H1B to change the starting date of the existing H1B. As far as I know, the only time you can do that is your current H1B is expiring in 6 month and your current employer can apply for a H1B extension for you. Apparently my case is not like that. Should I still wait here for the application result?

    2. If i choose to not wait here and get out of country to renew my visa. Giving the circumstance that I have already accumulated some illegal presence here, can i still go to Canada or Mexico to renew my visa?

    3. If I go to Canada to renew my visa and got rejected. Will that increase the chance of being rejected again if I go back to my home country and reapply?
    Last edited by barbalar; 05-14-2017, 10:42 PM.

  • #2
    Originally posted by barbalar View Post
    Hi all, need some serious suggestion from you guys. I have been fighting with this issue for the past couple months and it's still not solved and now it's getting worse. Okay here's the story:

    I traveled back to my home country last christmas with a valid H1B and valid visa stamp. My visa stamp expired 01/25/17. My passport will be expire 08/25/17. So when i came back to US, the CBP officer at the airport stamped the I-94 on my passport with a expiration date of 02/25/17 because they require my passport to be at least 6 month valid while i'm in US. The CBP officer suggested me to get a new passport before the passport I-94 expiration date and get back to the local CBP office and they will revised the expiration date for me. Truth is they refused to do so after i renewed my passport here before 02/25/17. I was told to get out of the country immediately and came back to get a new entry stamp to renew my I-94 expiration date. The issue is my visa stamp expired at the time so i will need to reapply and interview for the visa if i travel out of the country, which takes about 2-3 weeks at my home country and my employer don't want that happen. At the time, the lawyer of my company tried to help us solve this issue. He claimed that i should still have 180 days after 02/25/17, kind of grace period to solve this issue, but after 02/25/17, I would be accumulating illegal presence in United States, so the longer I stayed here, the more serious issue would be. Therefore, he re-applied H1B visa with premium processing for me. The lawyer is trying to request USCIS change the date on my old H1B to start from the I-94 expiration date 02/25/17 and get a new three-year period H1B. He sent out the package before 4/1 but the bad news was the package got rejected and delivered back to the lawyer on a day after 4/1. The lawyer then mailed out the package again to USCIS. This time they accepted the package and cash all the checks but they refused to process the application under premium service since it's bypass 4/1 at the time. We got the receipt notice saying USCIS received the package on 04/19/17 and sent out the notice on 05/02/17. Now the lawyer came back to us and suggest that I should go back to my home country to renew my visa and get the new i-94 date, since the regular processing might take 2-6 months and it might pass the 180 period at the time they approve my application. He thinks it won't take much risk to renew visa in my home country even though i have accumulating about 3 months of illegal presence here, since I'm not working for a IT consulting firm, it's not my first time renew H1B visa, my work duty and my major is not sensitive ones that they would be checking into, and the company has been trying to solve this issue after the I-94 expiration date because we have the new H1B receipt to prove this. With all that, he thinks there will be very rare chance that my home country reject my visa renewal and not let me come back.

    Here's my question:
    1. I have never heard that reapplying H1B to change the starting date of the existing H1B. As far as I know, the only time you can do that is your current H1B is expiring in 6 month and your current employer can apply for a H1B extension for you. Apparently my case is not like that. Should I still wait here for the application result?

    2. If i choose to not wait here and get out of country to renew my visa. Giving the circumstance that I have already accumulated some illegal presence here, can i still go to Canada or Mexico to renew my visa?

    3. If I go to Canada to renew my visa and got rejected. Will that increase the chance of being rejected again if I go back to my home country and reapply?

    First mistake was to not apply I-94 extension immediately as soon as CBP refused to extend your I-94. Why the lawyer took over a month to send out the H1 extension request is beyond me.

    Anyways, the damage is pretty much done and I dont think under these circumstances you will get H1 approved with new I-94. I would say, you may get it approved as consular process.

    2. Yes, but again, considering illegal stay , you may be put in Admin processing , so have a back up plan.

    3. Dont think so, as said, be prepared for admin processing, and delays.

    This is my opinion not legal advice.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by raghvi View Post
      First mistake was to not apply I-94 extension immediately as soon as CBP refused to extend your I-94. Why the lawyer took over a month to send out the H1 extension request is beyond me.

      Anyways, the damage is pretty much done and I dont think under these circumstances you will get H1 approved with new I-94. I would say, you may get it approved as consular process.

      2. Yes, but again, considering illegal stay , you may be put in Admin processing , so have a back up plan.

      3. Dont think so, as said, be prepared for admin processing, and delays.

      This is my opinion not legal advice.

      Lawyer told me it's not an I-94 extension. it's kind of re-adjustment to the current time frame of my current H1B, but i forgot the name of the application. Since the I-94 on passport was issued later than H1B I-94 so the expiration date on I-94 refresh the date on H1B no matter if the H1B date is expired or not. So he's trying to get a new H1B document so the new H1B I-94 date will override the I-94 date on passport. Does this sound logic to you?
      Another question how long does regular processing normally take? Is it really going to take that long?

      I'm really confusing on what should i do at this point. Should i immediately go back to my home country to renew visa, or should i stay here and wait for the new H1B result?

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by barbalar View Post
        Lawyer told me it's not an I-94 extension. it's kind of re-adjustment to the current time frame of my current H1B, but i forgot the name of the application. Since the I-94 on passport was issued later than H1B I-94 so the expiration date on I-94 refresh the date on H1B no matter if the H1B date is expired or not. So he's trying to get a new H1B document so the new H1B I-94 date will override the I-94 date on passport. Does this sound logic to you?
        Another question how long does regular processing normally take? Is it really going to take that long?

        I'm really confusing on what should i do at this point. Should i immediately go back to my home country to renew visa, or should i stay here and wait for the new H1B result?
        Guys, any thought?

        Comment

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