A Sincere Request

sonu1970

New Member
Can I be a beneficiary of my Husband"s pending I-140 to start residency on H1 in my 6th Year.I have alreay used 4 years of my H4.I am from India and affected by retrogression and our priority date is in March this Year.What can be my options to start a residency?Please help me.
 
In my understanding you cannot use your husband's priority date to continue your H1. You may either have to come back onto a H4 visa after completing 6years or change your H1 to J1 (although not a good option).
 
This is going to be difficult. The problem is that your husband won't be able to file his I485 in time for you to get an EAD. And you can't use his pending LC/I140 to get 7th year extensions.

One option would be to find an employer to file a LC for you (as research associate or some other non-physician job description). It doesn't require that you actually ever work for this employer, but if you get it to be pending for more than 1 year, you will be able to get H1b extensions by your own right.

And then there is going back for 1 year and returning on a fresh H1b.

Or J1. But that would really separate your immigration case entirely from your husbands and throw you back 7-8 years. By the time you will get a GC, your husband will be a citizen. I would not make this move unless there is really no alternative.

There is a chance that retrogression will go away in 2-3 years (but there is probably an equal chance that it is here to stay). So try not to take any actions that will limit your options 2-3 years down the line (e.g. take a J1).
 
One option would be to find an employer to file a LC for you (as research associate or some other non-physician job description). It doesn't require that you actually ever work for this employer, but if you get it to be pending for more than 1 year, you will be able to get H1b extensions by your own right.

With the PERM in place, it is now not possible for the LC to be pending for over a year. You cannot file LC in a traditional way any more.
 
> With the PERM in place, it is now not possible for the LC to be
> pending for over a year. You cannot file LC in a traditional way any more.

I should have said: LC PERM and I140. I realize that it would be very hard to find an employer to do this without actually planning on hiring you. It might be a possiblity if you know someone very well who owns a business.

The other option is to file a EB-1 extraordinary ability petition (or a NYS-DOT type NIW) + I485. They typically sit on these for more than a year. Typically they don't get denied outright, but rather after a 'request for evidence' is issued and responded to (90-200 days). This buys you at least a year and might sometimes be sufficient to get into a position to file another I485 based on the spouses I140.

With retrogression, tons of semi-qualified (for EB-1 purposes) candidates from the retrogression countries will start to file EB-1 petitions. As a result, the processing times for EB-1 cases will get progressively longer making it a possibility (at times, they don't issue EAD and AP on self-petitioned cases. But just to gain time and a pending case for the H1b extension, this MIGHT be a valid strategy).

You could also file a physicians NIW without the department of health support letter and an employment contract. Once they get around to process the case, they will issue an RFE giving you 90 days to respond with the missing documents. If they deny it after the RFE, you can appeal the decision and drag the thing out for another year or two (they might however just outright deny it without an RFE, they have done that before).


DISCLAIMER:
This is all speculation. In the past, whenever people have started to file this kind of 'speculative' petitions there has been a backlash by the goverment (e.g. it used to be fairly easy to get a regular NIW if you had a graduate degree. But after strippers with a PhD started to file NIW cases, the goverment started to summarily reject NIW petitions. This is when the NYS-DOT decision came down which essentially jacked up the requirements to the level of a EB-1 extraordinary ability level)

ANYTHING I write here is a laymans view of the f(#_ up immigration system. Get the advice of a reputable immigration attorney before you do anything. Don't complain to me or anyone else if you do something like the things I hinted at and get yourself in hot water with the goverment.
 
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