The H-1B runaround, trying to help a friend (x-post)

mhadley

New Member
Forgive the cross posting from another forum sub-folder (link here). I'm unfamiliar with the boards and am trying to find the most useful area.


Greetings. I humbly request any aid or information in this matter.

I have a dear friend in India who has been trying to get an H-1B work visa (for high tech) for the US, namely to come to the San Francisco area, since May of this year. Initially, his paperwork was processed and he was told he would have a reply by the end of July.

In early August, they contact him to tell him that due to security reasons, a hightened status of alert, they would not be able to grant him his visa. It was at this point that I checked DHS's website in which it said there was a limited orange alert in financial sectors of NYC and the rest of the country remained at Yellow.

While this notice on the DHS's website remains active, he keeps getting told the same info (it's "for security reasons" and that he'll be "informed very soon"). The US Embassy will not be more specific and it seems odd that a work visa from India would be held back over such an extremely limited orange alert while everything else seems to be running smoothly. I also have not seen any official reports about issues with H-1B visas being held back for security reasons.

I know I cannot directly help my friend obtain his visa, but I was wondering what can we do about this and is there any information that might aid us (such as an approximate wait time). Waiting since July without much change in status is very disheartening.

Thank you in advance for your assistance,

M. Hadley
 
It has nothing to do with the orange alerts. It has to do with administrative check. Your friend somehow tripped the check (background, education, name match with somebody else on the "watch" list) and it might take some time until it is complete. Nobody ever knows how long, timeframe ranges from couple of weeks to over a year.
 
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