Chrissywissy100

Me again!

Hubby (L1A) has come home and announced that it is 85% likely that his company is about to be bought out in the next month or so.

Assuming he isn't laid off in the process, but is transferred to the new company entiity, does anyone have any idea what would happen to our L1 and L2 status's in that event? Ie would it just be a change of company name sponsoring our visa, or is the visa null and void?

Or would we have to change visa types to eg H1, or leave completely to re-apply for L1/L2 visa for the the same company?

Also, as a side question, is it possible to apply for Greencards without family/ company sponsorship? If so, what wpould be involved, and how long would the process be (approx).

He and several of his collegues, on L and H visas have tried asking the questions, but HR is absolutely refusing to talk Visa/ contingency plans with ANYONE!:curse:

Thanks for any advice

Socal Local

Hi,

I thought at one point that I might be in a similar position to your hubby and posted the same question. Here's the thread:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=534784

It seems like the answer depends on the exact nature of the takeover and company doing the buyout and obviously it is difficult to know the details until it all happens.

In answer to your other question, you do need the company to sponsor your hubby to get from an employment based visa to a green card. If he is on a L1-A it should be relatively straightforward (aside from any possible complications thrown up by this merger) and the typical timescale is 12-18 months.

Good luck - I'll keep my fingers crossed that things turn out well. I know how unsettling something like this is.

Chrissywissy100

Thank you for that link. It feels like something unnerving like this has happened every 3 months since October. It's very worrying. Since the whole company is looking like it will be taken over, they will retain the UK and other international offices (at least in the short term we hope), and so our visa's will hold up. I guessed that was the case with the greencard sponsorship.

We have in writing (as part of the relocation package) that the company would sponsor and pay for our Greencard processing, although unfortunatley no timescale. We have been here a year now, and when we approached them on it in Dec/Jan, they said the company would not do any more until Sept and come back to them then. With the way things are, we don't really want to rock the boat, but at the same time, it's in the contract that they have that obligation. Is there anything in the rules to prevent us offering to pay for the greencard, and the company just sponsor in name only? If it is OK to do this, any idea how much the whole process costs with lawyers, medical etc? We thought that if we could afford it, we could broach them with this, and see if its a goer.

Sir Denis Eaton-Hogg

Hi,

I am currently in the same position..its very scary.

Talk to an immigration attorney and explain everything, they will detail your options.

I was surprised to find I had more than I thought which was reassuring. Because there is a tangible continuing relationship between the new owner and the old and the new owner is maintaining the overseas offices I originally came from I have the option to apply for an adjustment of my L1a.
Although I guess it depends very much on the circumstances.

Good luck

Sir D

Socal Local

I don't think there is anything to stop you contributing financially towards it, although it's a bit frustrating if you have it in writing that they will take care of it. I had to offer to contribute towards the costs for mine to get things moving along. For the costs, I think you are looking at around $3000 for filing fees, maybe a little more if you have children and a guestimate for the lawyer fees would be around $5000 if everything went smoothly and there were no RFEs. This is based on what I was told by our company's immigration attorney 3 years ago, so the costs may have increased since then - I suspect ours ended up costing more as there were RFEs on both the I-140 and the I-485.

Another angle to take with your husband's employer might be to point out that if they get started on the green cards soon, there is a good chance that you might be done before the L1 needs renewal and they have to pay out the filing fees, legal fees and travel expenses for visa stamping for that. I think this approach worked for MsElui's husband in getting his employer to move on the green card.