Help needed on RFE Response

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perai123

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Hope you remember my post on receiving a RFE last month. I have a question regarding the response to the RFE. 8 months after filing 485 in Nov 01, our company got merged with another unit of the same corporate and the name of my employer got changed from XYZ-Company1 to XYZ-Company2 and XYZ being the corporate name and it was not changed. Pay, nature of job, location and title remained the same only my employer name got changed slightly, while the corporate prefix remained the same. Now I got the RFE for EVL and paystubs. Lawer says AC21 needs to be used to explain the employer's name change in the response to RFE. Is that right? What formalities the lawer should have done when such a merger/name change happened and what needs to be filed along with the current response now? I am confused. Please clarify.

Thanks a lot

WAC02-056-******
ND 12/2001 and RD 11/2001
 
The compnay name got changed within 4 months and not after 8 months as I said in my previous post.

Experts please advice.

Thanks a Lot
 
Based on the information provided, get your lawyer to file an amendment to I-140 clarifying the company name change due to a corporate merger. This is a pretty standard procedure during corporate mergers and spin-offs and your lawyer is supposed to be aware of the fact.

However one could possibly try to use AC21 in this case. But believe me, there is no point in doing such a thing. It will only complicate the case beyond a reasonable limit bringing in no viable benefit.

The following is one of the possible scenarios, from top of my head, you can try to execute. Get your lawyer to file an amendment and wait until they send a receipt back (having said that, I do not actually know whether they issue any receipts, so to find out the proper procedure is up to you). Once you have some evidence that the amendment is properly filed and received, send in the RFE response along with a copy of the amendment receipt, along with a letter explaining the company name change due to a corporate merger.
 
perai123,

Not sure if you fall under AC21! It was not that you changed companies, it was your entire division that was bought over.

I think the amended I140 should do the trick. Like BitterMan says, reply to the RFE with an explanation of the change of name of the company, if you have any press clippings or advertisement stating the same, you should include that.

FYI, this is a slightly more complicated case, and I think beyond the perview of most of us here. You might want to get a second opinion from a lawyer who is competent. In my opinion it will be worth the money.

What ever you decide to do though, make it fast. The faster you reply to the RFE higher the chances that you will receive your approval soon! Good luck!
 
Bitterman & 140

Thanks a lot for your inputs.

The problem is, the lawer is very busy and it is difficult to know what he is exactly planning to do in this case. This should be a simple case as it is an internal company merger of two divisions. I don't know how he is going to handle it exactly. From his previous mail, I understood that he is going to file I140 amendment with an AC21 explanation letter. I don't know what does it mean. I am trying to get more details from him, I'll update once I get more details. I can go for second opinion only when I come to know about what the response is going to be and when it will be? I don't know why the hell they did not file any amendment as soon as the name got changed by last year itself and why they need to complicate the matter by filing at this last moment. As per PCEE's advice, I sent all my documents immediately, but it is getting delayed here itself. I am getting restless. In my language there is a saying the meaning of that is 'Even if god is ready to give a boon, the priest in between will delay the sanction of it". How many hurdles one has to cross before getting this GC?

If anybody else got the same experience, please share

Thanks a lot
 
Bitterman was correct. The Lawer is going to file for an 140 amendment and on getting the receipt of it, he will be sending the response with a letter. That means the response is going to be delayed further. Delay and waiting is the way of life when we deal with immigration process and my case is no exception. Why the hell lawers did not bother to file this amendment as soon as the employer name got changed last year. Or is it normal to file an amendment only when a RFE comes? I don't know. Now I have to wait for these formalities to complete, by the tme my response would reach INS, my file would have gone into waiting state (Kallaik kandaal Naya Kanom, Naya kanda Kallaik kanom - a saying in my mother tongue Tamil) and god alone knows when they will take it again for further process. The hurry I showed in sending paystub, w2 etc to the lawer are all waste now.

Bitteman: Do you have any idea how long it will take for the above process, 2 weeks to one month?

Thanks
 
Originally posted by perai123
Do you have any idea how long it will take for the above process, 2 weeks to one month?
Click to expand...

No, I can not answer this question, sorry.

One thing I can say is that the I-140 amendment was supposed to be filed right when the merger has occurred. If you are still working on H1-B, it was supposed to be amended as well. I hope that the delay will not be a problem.
 
Thanks. The amendment should have been done when the merger happened last year itself. But when the company changed they changed the lawer too. So I don't know which lawer's fault it was in not filing the amendment. Anyhod they did the damage. Lawers are equally good in doing the damage like INS. Thanks for your reply. I'll update you when there is some developments.

Thanks
 
Bitterman

I forgot to tell you that when the merger happened I was on H1 but 485 was already filed. So the old lawer told me that it will not impact my pending AOS. Now I am no more on H1 and living on EAD. Now the new lawer says we need to file the amendment. I don't know why these lawers are playing with our file and life.
 
You should know from your own experience that some people tend to do their job better, more thorough either because of better education or more experience in the field. And, alas, some people are just not pulling their weight, although it may not be that noticeable from the first sight.

The same is with lawyers. However, people working with other people usually given less tolerance to an error.

Take us, software engineers, for example. Suppose, you plant a bug in a program you write or patch. QA or techsupport returns to you and says - there is a bug. You ask: "A bug, eh? Is it documented how the program supposed to work in this particular situation? No? Then this is a feature." No harm done, and the bug gets fixed eventually. Of course, if you screw up a major piece of software, you may face severe penalties, up to employment termination. But it is rather an exception than a rule.

On the other hand, an immigration lawyer making a mistake jeopardizes his/her client legal status, permission to work or depart the country. A single bad call in most situations related to immigration will destroy everything a person was working for for many years. Younger people may survive such a disaster, but older may never recover from it.

That is why self-education in the immigration matters is a must, in my belief. Unfortunately, I realized that too late in the process to make a significant difference. Otherwise, I would be already having a Green Card on my hands. Oh, well.
 
Dear Bitterman

You are obsolutely right in your observations and the need for self education. Inspite being procative in my case and checked with my old lawer, he misinformed me. Had I been more informed about the future implications in this regard, I'd have pressed him for a proof of filing the amendment.

Regards
 
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