180-day job changers, RFE recd. for my case, Please HELP!!!!!!!

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simpleguy

Registered Users (C)
Dear GC friends,
I’m in a very tricky situation that has thrown me (and my family) into sleepless nights, repeated thoughts on the issue, too much stress, nervousness, confusion and above all, total imbalance in my day-to-day life :-(

I received a RFE couple of days ago. My case details are: VSC, EB2-India, PD:3/99, ND:1/00, changed to a similar job in 9/00 (after 180+ days but just before the law was signed in Oct’00), FP:3/01. I took the new job with an H-1 transfer even though I had EAD with me. Unfortunately for me, the division (in the new company) that I was working in, spun off into a different company name. When the division got spun off, our company lawyer applied for a H-1 transfer on the new name, which is still to be approved by INS.

I’ve received RFE and it asks for the following things.
1. letter on original letterhead from the prospective employer who filed I-140 on my behalf, stating continued interest in hiring me, title, job description and remuneration.
2. last 2 years tax returns (2000 and 1999) with all attachments incl w-2.
3. last 6 MONTHS pay stubs.

Now, here comes the tough part.
1.)My sponsoring (or prospective) company is a very big company and the HR may not be willing to give me the supporting letter as requested in (1) above. I’m thinking of requesting them but not sure how they will respond. Don’t have a good feeling about this. I’ve some old friends, some of whom are managers, who may give this letter to me but not sure if it is valid/ok?
2.)Year 2000 tax returns will have the changed company w-2 attached to it, as well as its info.
3.)last 6 months pay stubs will have pay slips with names of 2 different companies (2 stubs of my originally changed company, and rest of the pay stubs with the current company name (and god knows, hopefully the final name)on it.

With my above situation, after my lawyer (having sucked out all the GC fee from my pocket, since original company doesn’t pay for GC) has bluntly told me that he cannot do anything on my case, I’m at your mercy to seek advise on how I should respond to my RFE in a positive way for successful approval. I talked to Mr. Rajeev Khanna and in one sentence he said that I should just respond by asking to approve my case using the 180 day rule (also, he suggested that I should switch to a different lawyer to frame my RFE response properly). Also, I’ve taken an appointment with Attorney Murthy and will seek her advise early next week.
Since, I have always been working legally (on H-1’s) and have switched to a similar job after 180+ days of I-485 ND, I do think I have a good chance. As all of us, I’m desperate to get some sleep on this and also want to get out of this situation successfully.
Please..please help advise how I should approach and respond to this rfe, from your experience and knowledge. If anyone needs to contact me personally, please email me at simpleguygc@yahoo.com.

Thanks a lot!! - simpleguy
 
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If you have good relations with your sponsoring company get a letter from them stating their willingness to offer you a job in similar position. GC is for future employment so it doesnot matter how many times you have changed your job now as long as you demonstrate a good faith intention to work for the sponsoring employer. Don\'t respond to RFE yourself, follow Khanna\'s advise and have a good attorney represent you.
My two cents, don\'t rely on seeking advise from amatuers like me on this board, get professional legal advise and act accordingly.

Good luck.
 
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Hi alu_bukara,
Thanks!! a lot for your advise. I do have good relations with my previous employer and I\'m working on getting the necessary letter from them. Since its a big american company, I just have to pull the right strings, at the right time. I do think my sweat is still pouring in the cubes over there from the late night and weekend hours that I consistently put in that company.
As you rightly said, besides seeking advise on the immigration boards, I\'m also talking to some very good lawyers (Rajeev Khanna, Sheela Murthy) and am learning what they have to say on this. I also plan to talk to other lawyers if I don\'t get convinced. I\'ll do everything possible within my capabilities and will leave rest to God!.

thanks!! again for your reply -- simpleguy
 
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I think you can use AC 21.

This is what you should do (ofcourse this is just friendly advise. Talk to Sheela Murthy and Rajeev Khanna).

Get the future employment letter from your new employer and state the Position in the company and job description similar to the labor application. Also make sure that the salary defined in the letter is atleast equal to or greater thajn the one mentioned in the labor application.

Also attach all the W2 and salary slips requested (even though part of it is from the old employer and new employer) or if you are worried about sending the old employers pay stubs then delay the response to RFE (you have 3 months to respond to RFE). Make sure you get 6 months of pay stubs from new employer (as per your message, you must have completed 5 months with your new employer, so work for 1 more month and get 6 months paystubs from new employer) before responding to RFE. INS is just trying to verify that you were working and earning in last few years and they verify that through pay stubs abd W2s. Future employment letter is to make sure that you will have a job and won`t be a liability after getting GC.

With AC-21, you can switch employer after 180 days of applying to 485. I don`t thinkl it matters if you quit before the law is approved. Great lawyers like Rajeev Khanna and Sheela Murthy will definitely challange INS using AC-21 in the RFE Response letter. So you should hire such lawyers for responding to your RFE.

In the worst case scenario, you can continue working for the new employer and start the labor and 140. You can use your current priority date and save lot of time. If you have exhausted all 6 years of your H1, then you can delay the response to the RFE (you have 90 days to respond to RFE) and apply for new H1 from new employer. As long as your 485 is pending you can get new H1 for 1 year and do the labor and i140 in this one year. Hey but I am sure you will not need this.

Wish you all the best.

Vinayak
 
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Hi Vinayak,
I really thank! you for the thoughtful reply. I\'m pretty much in line with what you (and some others) have suggested. I\'m thinking of providing a current employer letter with similar info that I had in my previous employment\'s LC petition. This employment will justify the 6 months pay stubs that I\'ll be providing.
I\'m also working on getting the letter from the sponsor employer to accurately respond to the rfe question. Even though it is a daunting task, I hope to do something to pull this out.
Also, when I switched, I did switch using a H-1 transfer and am working on my new LC application.

thanks -- simpleguy
 
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