Turtle Tattoo Designs

Hi,

I was exactly in your same situation last year - When I re-entered the country, I was given an I-94 till the pp validity, later I renewed the pp promptly but overlooked the I-94 end date and realized it after a month. Following is my story and what I did.

When I noticed the I-94, seriously I dint know its expiry implications, but casually mentioned it to my employer,,,for just in case reasons. They guy was so upset and put me on to the company attorney for further advice. First I was adviced to approach the local CPB office, which I did, but turned down by the CPB office saying that I need to leave the country and re-enter !!!. But its very inconsistent with different CPB offices, because I read that some CPB offices (the one in chicago I think) entertains and give a new I-94, but most of them dont. So now I was left with only one option to go out of the country and re-enter. So applied and got canada visit visa, I booked a weekend flight to Vancouver Canada, flew out and returned back in a day and I was issued a normal I-94 now untill the end date of the visa !!!. Ridiculous as it sounds, to spend that much money for nothing. But blame the broken system. Infact to avoid the canada visa option, I was shopping for flights to India, just to go for one day and come back and the travel consultant was literally laughing at me that I am going all the way for just a touch down...She cant understand my pain.

Some lessons learned from my above experiences and some points that might help you -
1. The truth is, when your I-94 expires, you immediately loose your authority to work
2. There is a misconception in H1 world that you can continue for 180 days. But the 180 days time frame is just a time window for you to leave the country. Again, you can stay here for 180 days before you leave, but you cannot work.
3. Try your luck with the nearest CPB office, if you are close to chicago you have better chance I guess, but I tried in LA and they bluntly said that I need to leave.
4. In my case, though the I-94 expired, fortunately by God's grace, I had my 485 applied / EAD approved, so the attorney said that I have no complications to continue work (dual status), but have to renew the I-94 if want to maintain the H1 status.
Take the above 4th point as its appropirate for you case.
5. When you go to the CPB office, just pretend innocent and tell that you need to renew I-94. But if they refuse, DON'T keep negotiating for long, because they may put you in trouble.
6. If CPB office visit doesnt work out, then quickly take a flight out and return back. When you go to Canada, most of the cases the airline takes the I-94 from you, if they dont, then take it away yourself.
7. Either to Canada or Mexico, dont plan on travelling by car. Fly out and fly in so that you have sure chance of getting new I-94.
8. There are ways that you can apply for the extension of I-94 here itself but your attorney has to go thru USCIS procedures and its very complicated.

After going thru all those documentation pains for applying for H1, and later after the approval after all those awfull experiences to get appointment/stamping at the american consulate in India, you get the feeling that you are fully authorized to work in US. But still that small piece of paper issued during the entry has this much importance. Its illogical that you can renew your passport sitting inside the US, but for that piece of I-94 paper you need to go out and come. Give me a reason to prove that this is not a broken system.

And before I go,,,, here is something to laugh. My wife and kid when they re-entered US, their passport expiry was before the visa end date, but guess what, their I-94 was correctly/(or mistakenly) given untill the visa end date !!! Anyway, thru some immigration officer's mistake God saved my wife and kid from going thru what I went thru...

I hope this helps and I wish you the best of luck to get it in the local CPB office itself.

God Bless.

Congratulations on your freedom.

Folks,

I would like to share my success story of getting my I-485 application approved with a revoked/withdrawn I-140. We received our Green Cards and Welcome Letters in the mail yesterday. If you go through my profile, you should be able to get most of the information, but here it is anyway:

1] Company A applied for my LC followed by the I-140 application. We never got a chance to file I-485.
2] After I quite company A, they withdrew my I-140 application.
3] Company B started the process again with my labor application, followed by my new I-140 application. We didn't capture the older PD at this stage, but the A# was the same as the old one.
4] When we sent in our I-485 application, we included a letter describing that we would like to retain the older PD (we sent them a snippet of page 27 of the Field Adjudicator's Manual - Yates memo). In the interest of being transparent, we mentioned that the earlier I-140 was withdrawn by the previous employer. After an unrelated RFE, our case was finally approved last Friday (03/18).

I am sharing this information so that others who are stuck in a similar situation can use this as a datapoint in their struggle against the USCIS. I wish you all the very best in your Green Card journey.

Now if we can transfer our priority date from old system we would definitely get some benefit in the new system. Any comments ?

Let's hope :o

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070311145154AA9x6Th
http://www.city-data.com/forum/houston/

There are many good things.
1. cheap real estate.
2. diversed (for desis)
3. No state dox.

Bad things.

1. Hot and humid
2.high propert tax (3-4%)
3. High enery cost due to hot wether through out year. (average 300$-400$ for electric bill for 2500sq.ft house)
4. Hurricane and flood possibilites..

since there are so many threads discussing what we can and should do ..I thought that I would open this thread ..my red dots should send a signal that this is a serious issue. if USCIS were to act like this next year too ..then EB3 will become unavailable in march 2010 and EB2 will retrogress in june 2010 ..in other words HISTORY WILL REPEAT ITSELF ..so lets do something now (in addtion to helping IV) !!!

I am doing the same - full time H1B, part time school. Can use EAD for assistantship and full time school next year (if GC does not come through). If GC is approved(hopefully) since NC is already cleared and PD is current, I will continue about 6 months more full time with employer and do part time school.

How do you know that your namecheck is cleared?. thanks

:confused:I am going to call the USCIS customer service and ask them what should my next steps be... Will keep you guys posted!

I submitted my passport renewal in december 09 and received my new passport in feb 10. Exactly 3 months to the date. Its a pretty slow process. Initially they gave me a Jan date to pick the passport ( I did not personally not via mail) and when I went there they said they had not received police clearance from India (no change in house or any info from old passport) but good part was they said they will call me when the passport is ready and they did call. Other wise there is no way to contact them. The phone just rings and rings and message box is full.

Thanks. Any response/LUD on your 485 after your letter to confirm they did revoke G28?

I did the same this one month back. All you have to do is the letter to USCIS telling them that your attorney will not represent your case in future and please mail all the communication directly to my registered home address.

Send this letter to address mentioned in I-797 Notice of Reciept of I-485 with acknowledgement return address card.

Look for my previous post related to this and you will find the sample letter as well.

Schedule A workers first get GCs from EB3 quota and when they finsih that, they take the recapture numbers. When there is no recapture rule, they are treated as other regular EB3s.


exactly! this is almost a disaster for EB folks, most people dont realize that: they think the queue is getting smaller. The queue will remain the same, the chance (& amount) of recapture that might happen for regular EB folks is getting reduced. One recapture was alreayd done for Nurses back in 2005-06. This is the second one. One or two more such recaptures, and there will nothing for US to recapture.

I dont think EB3 is current for Nov 2004. Infact, it is unavailable for all countries of charge until Oct First. If you are Phillipines or rest of the world, you still need to wait until OCt First to file

PD is ported irrespective of the EB class

Bumping up !

RFE issued on May, 11th.

My lawyer has not received a letter yet, but I have kept him in the loop.

I am definitely worried.... fear of the unknown :mad:

Any ideas on what should I expect in the RFE?
....
EB3-I, Labor filed in Aug'2005.
I-485 filed in 2007.

If u r not married, its better to change the job using H1b transfer and use Ac21portability to continue the GC process ( new job should be similar). You don't have to use EAD. Once you start using ur EAD, you loose ur H1B status automatically and it would be hard to bring your wife on H4.

Here are the answers for ur three questions.

1. Your 485 will be in good standing as long as you change the job after 180 days of 485 receipt. You don't need any support from your ex-employer. But make sure your I-140 is approved before you leave and try to get the copy of it. If you leave before 140 approval, employer can revoke it and then your 485 will be denied. So chage the job after 180 days of 485 receipt using H1b transfer. (When using Ac21 portabilty you can inform USCIS proactively or wait for the RFE.) Don't use EAD if you are not married.

2. I think you can get H1B extension using 140 approval.

3.Yes, your wife can file the 485 when the PD is current. Her H1b doesn't have any effect on this.

I hope I answered the all your questions.

one misconception in the immigration community is that you need to use AC21 and EAD to change the job. This is not true. You don't have to use EAD to change the job. People use EAD just to avoid H1b transfer and other stuff.

Never use AP if you are unmarried.

This information is based on my research on this issue. For more accurate info, please contact the attorney!!!!

Sounds true. I got RFE on employment verification last week. I am a July 2007 filer.

Is there any minumum periods which i can reenter to us with the same old VISA. Means if i travel back on July/Aug and my VISA expires on Sept. I heard i should have a minimum 3 months validity for the VISA before i am reentering to US. Is that true?

Some people say this is 6 months, I am not sure and I have been asking on various forums but haven't received a concrete answer yet.

11 years for me... but I have not done anything to cut someone off... just waiting patiently...

hey zcool be cool man..

i did 4 years of bs and 2 years of MS in US and this is my 10th year in US..i am not desperate for GC..but living here for too long and standing in the back of the line..just trying to move ahead in the line..common man don't get pissed off..help out here..

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I am also sponsoring my mother-in-law to come here. I will have to see how this goes.

This is an important step zero. I am sure Reid will push this through in the Senate.

But in this congress it's all about what the House does.. Need to see the House version of this bill..

CIR (aka mass amnesty) was not doable in the past, and is not now and wont be in future. They could not do it even when democratic party was in power in congress (high tide of democratic party). It is impossible now with GOP in control.

It si pure lip seervice by Sen Reid

first sorry for multiple posting, it was by mistake as it was the first time posting. then thanks for the answers. Of course it is a real job with real payment, just remember my application goes back to 3 years ago and and I finally got it with lots of efforts to keep this opportunity. I never thought they might give the visa just for 3 months. now I have to think about all options. Does anybody have any other suggestion?

Thanks guys...some kind of relief ...!!!!