L2 to H4

K

kalamahari

Registered Users (C)
Hello friends,

I am currently in US with my wife. I am on an L1 A and she is on an L2 visa. I had applied for an H1 in June 2004 and in Nov 2004 there were some INS queries. Yesterday I saw the status on the INS site that my response to their queries has been received and I should hear soon from them.

I have read a lot of material about L1 to H1 conversion and do understand that a person has to necessarily take the H1 if it was filed while being on an L1 status. But what about my wife? I had applied for her H4 2 months back and I am not sure that what are my options if lets say my H1 comes through tomorrow?

1) Would she also get an H4 immediately or is it a separate petition?

2) If her H4 does not come through then can she legally stay in the country waiting for her H4? I plan to take a job using my H1 immediately, resigning from the current job.

It would be great if some of you Visa gurus can throw light on my situation.

Thank you...
Paramjeet.
 
1) Would she also get an H4 immediately or is it a separate petition?

Your wife wouldn't get H-4 automatically. Once you receive your H-1B approval, you can file for change of her status from L-2 to H-4, because her status is dependent upon your status. After filing for change of status to H-4, she can wait and stay until the approval, which may not be hard to get. But H-4 has a lot of disadvantages such as H-4 dependents may not be eligible to work in the US. The following link contains a lot of FAQs for H-4:
http://faq.visapro.com/H4-Visa-FAQ.asp

2) If her H4 does not come through then can she legally stay in the country waiting for her H4? I plan to take a job using my H1 immediately, resigning from the current job.

She needs to file for change of status to H-4 as soon as you receive your H-1B approval notice. She can stay in the US and wait for the approval of the application until she receives approval notice.
 
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