I came to US in H4 and applied for H1b in last year cap. The H1B got approved now. But my spouse has also applied for her H1b Extension along with my H4 Extension. My wife’s visa is in RFE and her Employer is collecting all the necessary documents to respond to the RFE.
One of the Lawyer said, the latest visa will be valid always. My H1 is already approved and my H4 extension is yet to be approved and will be approved in few days (Once my wife’s employer responded to the RFE). In this case, the latest visa will be H4 and H1 will be invalid as per the lawyer.
A few people are telling that i can hold both H1 and H4 visa and during my travel to India, whichever visa am using will be valid. Also, withdrawing of H4 is a risk at this time.
Kindly advise on the following as soon as possible:
Can i work with my H1 though my H4 visa approved (latest)?
Can i withdraw the H4 as i already have a H1B to work?
There are 2 things - visa and status. You can have multiple visas in the passport, but you can have only one status in US which is determined by the latest I-94.
If the H-1 was issued along w/ I-94 then you are already on H-1 status. If you want to remain on H-1 and continue working then you need to withdraw H-4 extension. If your H-1 was approved w/o I-94 or if you want to stop working now, then H-4 extesion needs to get approved.
To provide a more concrete answer, can you tell if H-1 was approved w/ COS or not (i.e. has I-94 attache or not).
Hi Saurabh, Thanks much for the reply! The H1 was applied with COS. The consultant is asking us to continue with the H4 extension and not to withdraw. He said, I can work in H1 till my H4 is approved. Once the H4 is approved, he is going to apply for the amendment. Kindly advice whether there are any risks in this.
Why does he want the H-4 extension to continue? If H-4 gets approved, then she will have to stop working from that date until her H-1 COS gets approved. Is that break in employment acceptable to employer or client where she will be working at? Personally, I prefer to have to least number of applications filed as every petition carries reasonable amount of risk. So why get H-4 approved and then apply for H-1 COS when she is already on H-1.
Did he provide you the reason why he wants to do this way?
Hi yuvi_bal,
can you please tell me how you overcome from this problem, even I am in same boat as you now. Please reply it will be very usefull for me. Spavan
I am also in the same scenario. Could you please tell me how you are planning to go head with this problem.
I had discussion with my attorney and he tells not to withdraw the H4 extension. He tells I will be in no status from the day my I-94 expired (22nd Sep 2013) till 1st of Oct 2013.