kavitam7

I left company a on Nov. 2001 last year and joined company B on Dec 10th 2001. I submitted all my papers with paystubs to the Company B lawyer for processing. The Company B lawyer seems to be incompetent and filed for my visa only mid jan and he also sent it to the wrong jurisdiction-Texas when I was working in New york and my visa needed to be processed in Vermont.
Now Texas INS took the 3 months and then transferred my case to Vermont INS, Vermont INS again took around 120 days and after that they sent a query finally asking for certain docs again on Sept 13 2002. I sent all the docs to the Company B lawyer in reply against the query, but the lawyer is very rude and is not taking the initiative to send the documents promptly, it has been 1 month and he is still not sending the reply to my query in spite of me requesting him again and again and he keeps giving me some excuse that he doesn't have time.
Now I am planning to make a trip to India this Nov. End, and need the new approval before that, is there anything i can do to either get my approval or how will I enter the country without the approval.
Note that this is partly INS and partly the lawyers fault it has taken around 1 year to process my transfer, now if I go out of the country will I be able to enter?

Also the h1b visa stamped on my passport from my previous employer expired on Oct 15th.

PLease any advice.

Ingo Pakleppa

On Wed, 16 Oct 2002 09:06:30 -0700, kavitam7 wrote:


    > I left company a on Nov. 2001 last year and joined company B on Dec 10th
    > 2001. I submitted all my papers with paystubs to the Company B lawyer
    > for processing. The Company B lawyer seems to be incompetent and filed
    > for my visa only mid jan and he also sent it to the wrong
    > jurisdiction-Texas when I was working in New york and my visa needed to
    > be processed in Vermont.
    > Now Texas INS took the 3 months and then transferred my case to Vermont
    > INS, Vermont INS again took around 120 days and after that they sent a
    > query finally asking for certain docs again on Sept 13 2002. I sent all
    > the docs to the Company B lawyer in reply against the query, but the
    > lawyer is very rude and is not taking the initiative to send the
    > documents promptly, it has been 1 month and he is still not sending the
    > reply to my query in spite of me requesting him again and again and he
    > keeps giving me some excuse that he doesn't have time. Now I am planning
    > to make a trip to India this Nov. End, and need the new approval before
    > that, is there anything i can do to either get my approval or how will I
    > enter the country without the approval. Note that this is partly INS and
    > partly the lawyers fault it has taken around 1 year to process my
    > transfer, now if I go out of the country will I be able to enter?
    > Also the h1b visa stamped on my passport from my previous employer
    > expired on Oct 15th.

Well, there are a number of issues. First, you fell out of status when
you left company A without a transfer already pending. Fortunately, it
probably won't have any serious consequences. You will need to leave the
US in order to fix that, and apply for a new visa - both of which you
were going to do anyway. The only bad news is that you may well find
yourself stuck in India for several months while waiting for the new
visa. With the new security measures, visa processing has ground to a
screeching halt. It may be a good idea to contact your congressperson for
help before leaving. At the very least, he should be able to tell you how
long visa processing really takes there.

I'm not sure whether Texas really was the wrong jurisdiction. In some
cases, it was legit to file an H-1B where company headquarters are, even
if the job is in a different distrct. Although I believe INS abolished
this procedure a while ago, and the lawyer should have known that.

But that is water under the bridge.

Ingo