MorsePacific

Thanks all for the good advice! That's what I love this forum

MorsePacific

Well, things have moved along, and I have a job offer in my hand.

The company are going to transfer my L1-B to an H1-B, and have set my start date as 6 weeks from now to allow that process to happen.

I'm going to talk to them more this evening but I'm a mite skeptical that this can be done in 6 weeks, and am therefore worried that if I give up my employment here:

1. I'll only have 60 days remaining on my existing visa
2. I won't have any money coming in!!

I'm going to ask if I can speak with their immigration attorney or at least have them send out something to me that can confirm my options before I put pen to paper.

Anyone had this transfer take place? I was under the impression I wouldn't find out if it was successful until Q3 of the year ...

Orangepants

I'd be interested to see how they think they can transfer a L-1 to a H-1 (unless of course you are not subject to the cap). If the company apply in the lottery in 3 weeks time on April 1 and you are successful, your H-1B would start in Oct. My OH found out his was successful about 3 weeks after April 1 and then his H-1B began Oct 1. What about labor certification? Have they addressed that?

You need to speak to your own attorney today. A change of status can be done in country once you have the H-1B that could "transfer" your status from L to H but you have to have the petition first.

Pulaski

If you're talking about a lottery application for a H-1, with about a 25% chance of success, then as Orangepants said, you'll know in just a few weeks if your name has been drawn .... then the visa paperwork gets processed. I don't know about 6 weeks, but I hear it isn't unusual to have an H-1 lottery visa processed by June.

MorsePacific

Confirmed! This is exactly what they're intending on doing, so why they put down a start date of April 23rd I will never know. Right hand not talking to left hand I guess.

giri26

There is nothing much they can do at the moment. The applications go through a lottery and there is no way they can guarantee it will be picked. Also if at all it is picked, you can only start working in October. So the start date of April 23 isn't going to happen. The only way that could have happened is if you were already on H1b and your new employer was filing a cap-exempt H1B (popularly known as transfer), in that case you could have started working with the receipt. I am afraid there is no other way at the moment.

MorsePacific

Yeah, they're going to submit to the process and wait and see what happens - they're willing to wait until October if it gets approved.