Friends -
Have received an H1 extension and my current visa expires Oct 1, 2002. My new I-797 authorizes stay till Jan 2004.
I may have to travel overseas on business and lets say I return on 26th/27th Sept 2002.
a) Is it mandatory to send in the passport so that it reaches St. Louis before the 1st Oct (my expiry date on the current visa?) Or can I send it for revalidation even after the 1st Oct expiry?
b) If I *can* send it in after the 1st Oct, then is there any limit on the amount of time after that date by when I have to send the passport? Say 6 months or something like that??
c) What happens if St. Louis "rejects" the stamping request (for whatever reason)?? Can this happen? What recourse do I have then...can i simply stay in the US till the end of the new I-797 (assuming that I dont ever leave the country, sine i dont have a visa stamp to allow me to come back in) ??
Pls help URGENTLY....need to plan out everything asap. Any information you can provide will be awesome.
Thanks!
Have received an H1 extension and my current visa expires Oct 1, 2002. My new I-797 authorizes stay till Jan 2004.
I may have to travel overseas on business and lets say I return on 26th/27th Sept 2002.
a) Is it mandatory to send in the passport so that it reaches St. Louis before the 1st Oct (my expiry date on the current visa?) Or can I send it for revalidation even after the 1st Oct expiry?
b) If I *can* send it in after the 1st Oct, then is there any limit on the amount of time after that date by when I have to send the passport? Say 6 months or something like that??
c) What happens if St. Louis "rejects" the stamping request (for whatever reason)?? Can this happen? What recourse do I have then...can i simply stay in the US till the end of the new I-797 (assuming that I dont ever leave the country, sine i dont have a visa stamp to allow me to come back in) ??
Pls help URGENTLY....need to plan out everything asap. Any information you can provide will be awesome.
Thanks!