is it safe to travel

[vjgp]

Hi,
Our GC has been applied under 245 and we have valid A.P. Now I want to go to India. Our previous company's lawyer told us we can't leave the country but another lawyer told us we can go to India because we were in out of status at that time, not overstayed.(Our H1B and H4 are still valid until Nov2002, GC has been applied in June02 . My husband was in without job 45 days,that's why our previous lawyer made us to pay 1000$ fine). Please give your opinions regarding Can we go to India?
Thanks for your input.

 

[guju]

From this article [http://murthy.com/arc_uds/UDadparo.html] you can see that you have to be out of status for 180 days or more, and then you will be barred for 3-10 years and AP won't gurantee re-entry.

However, it is totally your decision if you want to leave this country or not.

Correct me if I am wrong, don't you get 60 days to leave once your H1 becomes invalid? If I am right, then if you were only out of status for 45 days after your H1 became invalid, then you weren't really out of status, were you? If I am wrong, then nevermind.

I personally wouldn't leave if I had filled 485 under section 245

 

[TheRealCanadian]

Originally posted by vjgp
Our previous company's lawyer told us we can't leave the country but another lawyer told us we can go to India because we were in out of status at that time, not overstayed. ...My husband was in without job 45 days,that's why our previous lawyer made us to pay 1000$ fine).

Call the lawyer and ask for your $1000 back. There is NO reason you needed to file under 245i unless you had accumulated illegal presence or an out of status situation for more than 180 days.

If you are the beneficiary of an EB-485, section 245k allows you to file an I-485 without penalty provided you were out of status for less than 180 days.

You are safe to travel - you should then get in touch with AILA to see about reporting this attorney for costing you a serious amount of money based on lack of knowledge.