I have applied for a H1-B extension on 3rd Aug 2015 under regular processing. My status does not show any change on the USCIS website. Now I want to travel to India as soon as possible. My questions is that should I wait till 3rd Feb for my approval as 3rd Feb will be exactly 6 months since I applied for my extension and a lot of people are getting their responses in 6 months or should I just go ahead and convert it to premium processing. My worry is that if i convert to premium processing , it could delay my case further as the premium processing response is within 15 calendar days. Also the other factor is that my previous extension has expired on 30th Sept 2015 and currently i am staying in the US under the 240 day rule.I have heard that if the period of time of stay in the US exceeds 180 days and if my H1-B gets rejected for some reason I may be banned from entry into the US as my stay in the US after Sept 30th 2015 would be considered as ‘illegal’ . Is this true? and if so should I go for the premium option immediately.Any help will be greatly appreciated.
It is your decision whether to upgrade or not. My personal opinion would be to upgrade to PP as approval in 6 months may be a trend but definitely not a rule. You can also look at processing time for your service center to get an idea.
If your petition is denied b/w 180 and 240 day mark, you are not barred from entry to US. Your stay until the petition denial date will still be considered legal. You are start accumulating illegal status stay from the date of petition denial.