Urgent Advice needed for colleague

[ag28]

Dear Friends,
this is not the forum for H1 but being a regular member here, thought that I would get the maximum responses and appropriate help here.

My colleague's H1 petition (Classification) has been approved but the change of status (from OPT/F1 to H1B) has not been approved as he left the country after his H1 application was filed.
1) Does he have to go to the home country to get his visa stamped? or could the visa be stamped from Canada/mexico (its F1 to H1 conversion)

2) The other option is for him to file a fresh H1 application (2nd time) and go to Canada for stamping. In this case he would be filing 2 two applications from same organization. Would that be a problem and what if he comes under the quota now and the petition gets denied. can he then use the earlier petition that had been approved.

Have any of you guys come across such a case and if yes what is the best way out?

Thanks for your time and help.
Best Wishes.

 

[TheRealCanadian]

1) Does he have to go to the home country to get his visa stamped? or could the visa be stamped from Canada/mexico (its F1 to H1 conversion)

In theory, the visa could be stamped in Canada/Mexico, but stamping is at their discretion (unless he is a citizen or PR of Canada or Mexico). I would strongly suggest he check out the web sites of the embassies in Canada to see what they do. I believe it is usembassycanada.com.

The other option is for him to file a fresh H1 application (2nd time) and go to Canada for stamping.

He already has an approved H petition; his employer doesn't need to file another.

 

[ag28]

I think that he could file 2 petitions from the same company (and get the change of status done with the 2nd petition) or go out for stamping but then is it necessary to go to home country or can be done from border country.