I am a Green Card holder, my wife is working under H1b visa. There might be some lay offs in her company. If she loses her job (and therefore H1 status ), what options she will have? Can she get an EAD based on my green card? What Visa status will she be under? Thanks.
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H1 holder married with a GC holder
- Thread starter pipo
- Start date
visit the USCIS website-www.uscis.gov and check under filing for family members. as I understand, because you are a green card holder, your wife would fall into the 2nd preference category. you will have to file an I130 petition for your wife and wait for an alien # to become available before she can file for adjustment of status and thus work permit. last I checked, I130 petitions for her category are being processed for June 2005-so as you can see it will take a long time for an alien # to become available for her. can she get another employer to sponsor her for H1B?
Are you close to being able to become a US Citizen? If so, that's your best bet. As a Green Card holder, your wife doesn't get a immediate visa number, unlike the wife of a US citizen. Catjupp is a little mixed up I'm afraid, the issue is not how long it takes to process the I-130, but waiting for your wive's visa priority date to come up. These are found in the Visa Bulletin:
http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_3143.html
A wife of a Green Card holder is in the F2A category, and currently the priority date on that category is March 2002. I.e. if you submitted an I-130 in March 2002, it would begin processing this month. So almost a 5 year wait.
Chances are you can become a US citizen before then, which will allow your wife to immediately file for AOS and an EAD.
Right now however, when your wife's H-1B expires she has 2 choices: Leave the USA or remain here as an illegal alien (or if she can get another company to sponsor her for an H-1B, that will do nicely). Sadly being a green card holder does not confer any rights for a visa or work permit onto your wife, in fact, H-1B visa holders wives get more rights than Green Card holders wives. F***ed up eh?
http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_3143.html
A wife of a Green Card holder is in the F2A category, and currently the priority date on that category is March 2002. I.e. if you submitted an I-130 in March 2002, it would begin processing this month. So almost a 5 year wait.
Chances are you can become a US citizen before then, which will allow your wife to immediately file for AOS and an EAD.
Right now however, when your wife's H-1B expires she has 2 choices: Leave the USA or remain here as an illegal alien (or if she can get another company to sponsor her for an H-1B, that will do nicely). Sadly being a green card holder does not confer any rights for a visa or work permit onto your wife, in fact, H-1B visa holders wives get more rights than Green Card holders wives. F***ed up eh?
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thanks to all for your replies. It really doesn't make sense that the spouse of a Green Card holder would get so little benefits compared to other visa holders.. but well, I guess this whole GC process doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. I had my green card for a year, so I also still have a long way to become a citizen. I think finding a new job that transfers her H1 will work better for her - at least she doesn't need to worry about the H1 quota anymore.
It actually does make a sort of perverted sense if you think like USCIS. The fact is all other visas are usually non-permenant, i.e. you're going to leave the US eventually. USCIS are happy to give out spousal visas in these cases, knowing that the spouses will eventually leave with their husbands. In the case of a green card, giving a visa to a spouse is basically giving them permenant residence, which is why they don't want to do that.pipo said:thanks to all for your replies. It really doesn't make sense that the spouse of a Green Card holder would get so little benefits compared to other visa holders..