Does anyone has any advice on the situation I am in? Here is the back ground. I have been in U.S. for close to 11 years. In between I took two masters degrees and have been working in H1 as well. I started with F1 in 1996 and in 1998 I switched to H1. Unfortunately because an unscrupulous employer I was with I couldn’t file for a labor certification. In 2004 finally I switched employers. At that time my new employer was not willing to file for labor certification (LC) under RIR. So we filed a traditional LC case. In between I got promoted, my job title changed and my LC case got moved to the backlog center. However I continued doing computer programming work as before. Anyway, earlier this year taking advantage of a labor department directive to convert traditional LC cases to an RIR case we requested a conversion. We also did the recruitment efforts and submitted the RIR case packet. At this point the labor department got back to us and said since my job title and salary changed they are denying our request for conversion to RIR and they advised as to either continue with the old labor certification request or file under PERM. I cannot continue with the old case because the job and title under which I filed the traditional LC case is no more available. Nor does my employer want to continue the old case.
The problem is I am on the 8th year extension on H1B. We have already petitioned for the 9th year extension. Labor department has not denied my original labor certification case yet. But at one point I am guessing they are going to do it. I am not sure what priority date I am going to get if I file a new case under PERM. I am from India and hence filing for I485 is not possible in the next few years. I am not sure if I can keep extending my H1B if my original LC is denied or withdrawn. I have a very inflexible employer and I have spent more than $20,000 over the last ten years from my pocket for immigration expenses alone. After all years of anguish and expense it seems like I am back at square one. Does someone know what my alternatives are? Does looking for a new employer to file for a new PERM case under EB2 makes better sense. At my current job I can only file for EB3.
The problem is I am on the 8th year extension on H1B. We have already petitioned for the 9th year extension. Labor department has not denied my original labor certification case yet. But at one point I am guessing they are going to do it. I am not sure what priority date I am going to get if I file a new case under PERM. I am from India and hence filing for I485 is not possible in the next few years. I am not sure if I can keep extending my H1B if my original LC is denied or withdrawn. I have a very inflexible employer and I have spent more than $20,000 over the last ten years from my pocket for immigration expenses alone. After all years of anguish and expense it seems like I am back at square one. Does someone know what my alternatives are? Does looking for a new employer to file for a new PERM case under EB2 makes better sense. At my current job I can only file for EB3.