H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

Guys

Help me out here. Here's the scenario!!

When my husband was offered the job he's now in, the company had never before employed someone from overseas. The applied for permanent residency which was a nightmare, and 3 years after applying, decided to change it to H1-b, which took about 12 months and we are now here on H1-b and H4's. In between times, we got word from the USCIS that our I-140 was approved and now sitting at the National Visa Centre, awaiting category 3 to become available, which we knew would take years.

So today, wondering how long the GC was going to take, we sent an e-mail to the Immigration Attorney, who has now replied saying that his understanding was that the I-140 was approved and subsequently denied!!! We are now totally confused. So my question to you guys who obviously know a hell of a lot more than me is, can an employer sponsor a green card for someone who is not working for them?? Have they totally screwed up and we're going to be back at square one in applying for permanent residency. This has thrown me completely and I feel totally out of my depth in understanding what the hell is going on. Any advice or information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

Get your own immigration lawyer?

If the one hired by the employer doesn't know, they're either incompetent, or possibly not looking out for your interests, but they wouldn't as the employer is their client and not you, so they could be keeping you in loops if that's what the company wants, because once you've got the greencard, you're free to do what you like but other wise, they've got you well covered.

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

Get your own immigration attorney. The company's attorney works for the company and it is their interests, not yours, that is their concern. Get your own attorney and sort this out.

Ian

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

Thanks guys, I think you're right, but what a pain in the ass, thought it was all sorted. :(

Thanks again.

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

Did I read your post correctly? Your husband is NOT working for the company that sponsored his H-1B? Or are you talking about yourself as an H-4?

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

No, he is working for the company that sponsored him and me and the girls are on H4's. But we were under the impression that our I-140 was okay, now he's saying that it was accepted and then subsequently denied. I'm totally confused. If we have to file a new one, then we're back to square one and it would mean myself and my older daughter would not be able to work for the next 6 years, or however long the application process is now. That would have a huge detrimental effect on us. We were working on hopefully, at least myself, being able to work within the next 3 years. I'm going to wait and see what he comes back with today as he said he was going to pull out our file, and then take it from there. I just posted to see if anyone knew if a company can file for permanent residency for someone without an H1-b or do they have to legally be here on an H1-b before the company can file for PR.

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

Rete, thank you. I have no clue now what stage we're at. I need to get the right information from him as he doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. What is the I-485's, I find this all so confusing?? Or maybe I'm just thick!!

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

The I-485 is the application for US permanent residency (green card).

Rene

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

Well, that's what we must have put in all those years ago, and we got as far as our application being accepted and as far as we knew, it was sitting at the National Visa Centre. Now he's telling us it was denied. I have no clue, but my OH's trying to find out today what the hell is going on. Thank you.

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

First of all, if I were you, I would find out a lot more about the process than you seem to know. If your working life depends upon this process, get yourself educated about it. If you find it confusing, hire a lawyer to explain it to you. It's too important to just leave it and hope someone else knows what they are doing.

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

I totally know how important this is. I'm sorry if I come across as not having a clue, but I do happen to be reasonably intelligent, and our understanding was that our I-140 which I understand to be the employment based application for permanent residency, had been accepted and passed to the National Visa Centre, this is the information we were given. While all of this was going on, my OH's employer decided that the process was taking too long and they decided the apply for an H1-B which was accepted and we have been here since February. Nowhere along the line, has the Immigration Attorney said that there was a problem with our application for permanent residency.

At no point had we thought there was a problem, which it now turns out there is. Once I get the correct information back from this Attorney about when it was denied and why it was denied, then we are going to hire our own Immigration Attorney. We have not done this on a whim. It took us over 3 years to actually get here, so we've had plenty of time to think about it, and have not has an easy time in the last 10 months, so now that things have started to settle down, we wanted an update from the Attorney. And here we are.

Thank you for your comment. I try to get to grips with all the different terms and forms etc and have had a lot a good advice and information from this forum, so I will now go and brush up on the whole process again, since I'm obviously sub intelligent.

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

The I-140 is an "Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker". The employer files this for someone he wants to employ who currently lives outside the USA. When approved, the future employee goes to a visa interview and obtains an Immigrant Visa based on the employer's I-140 petition. When the future employee enters the USA using the Immigrant Visa, he becomes a US PR (i.e., gets his green card) right away. So, this is what the employer started long ago.

After realizing this was going to take too long, it seems the employer did an H1B petition instead, right? This petition was approved, your husband got an H1B visa, entered the USA, and began working, right?

So...I don't know why the I-140 was denied, but at least it's clearer now what happened. So what needs to happen now, is that the employer needs to start the process for your Adjustment of Status to Permanent Resident. This is done by filing form I-485 and all related documents. I believe it has to be the employer who files.

I'm by no means an expert at employment-based adjustment, so hopefully others will chime in to see if I got this right.

Rene

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

Trouble is one of the related documents is an approved I-140 (unless they changed it after we filed for ours, which i don't think they have).
What 'group' in H1B is he? EB1, 2 or 3. If its 3, even with an approved I140 it wont be quick. I'm EB3 and had my I140 approved back in 2006. I'm still waiting for the adjustment of status. Its at least another year off for us.

AFAIK your right

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

The employee is the one who files Adjustment of Status, not the employer. It seems that the original Green Card application was being done via Consular Processing rather than AOS, but if the whole process has to be started again (not necessarily the case) then AOS would probably make more sense.

As Paul S mentioned, the possible denial/revocation of the I-140 would have to be resolved before adjusting status.

Re: H1-b and Green Card - totally confused!!
 

Thank you so much Rene. You are quite right. That is basically what happened, but even though we were then granted the H1-b, we assumed that everything for the PR was ok, we had never heard throughout all of this that there was a problem.

Thank you very much for that, we are still waiting to hear back from the Attorney, but that is nothing knew. He seems to always take forever, and if we don't get the right answers from him, then we'll need to see about hiring someone els. Thanks again for that, appreciate it.