I am on H4 visa in US so I am going to apply for H1-visa lottery for this year through some consultancy. The USCIS process for H1 cap exempt lottery will start from 1st April 2016. I want to travel to India on H4 in April for 1 month and return back to US in April itself before USCIS approves/rejects for my H1 visa application. Is it safe to travel India during that time or there is some drawback?
You can travel outside of US in April. Only issue is that your COS would be abandoned. This means even after your H-1 gets approved, your status will remain H-4 and will not change to H-1 until a separate COS is applied or you enter on stamped H-1 visa.
Let your prospective H-1 employer know about the travel plans.
In which cases COS is considered as abandoned? Could you please help me to understand that conditions.
COS require the person to continually stay inside US while it is being processed. In other words I-94 number should not change.
As soon as you leave US, your current I-94 is closed and new one issued on returning to US. This causes abandonment of COS.
If I go through the consular process then is it possible to travel India? Is there any drawback related to consular process and where stamping would be done?
You can file it as consular processing from get go, or file it as COS and then let it get abandoned when you travel outside US.
The only drawback of consular processing is that you have to appear for visa stamping, which may run into issues especially if your employer is a small desi consulting company.