violation of status and running out of time

purplefall

New Member
Hi All,

I found out one year ago that I worked without authorization for a period of 10 months under H1-B in 1999 when my wife and I were ready to file for I-485 adjustment of status application (on her behalf, employment based application).

My wife's lawyer said that I will not be subject to 3 years ban but I have to adjust my status through consular processing. What we ended up doing is that we submitted my wife's I-485 and my I-824 applications to NSC. The plan is to adjust my status through consular processing after my wife's approval based on follow-to-join (while hoping that 245i will pass, and it didn't).

Last week, through online status checking, we found out that my wife's I-485 will not be approved until maybe one year from now(her received date is July 2002). I'm worried that I might run out of time because my 6 year H1-B visa will expire in March 2005. The processing time of I-824 will take more than 8-10 months, I hope BCIS officer will approve my I-824 same time when he/she approves my wife's I-485 (is it common practice?)

What are our options?

1. I wondered why our lawyers didn't have both of us do consular processing at that time (it never occurs to my mind until now). Does it make sense to do it now? considering it might take 6-12 months to do it.

2. I'm thinking about applying for green card through my employer, and hope to get the 7th year H1-B extension (if I have to). But It will cost more money (we have spent 10K on my wife's application).

Please help!

Thanks,
pl


ps: we haven't sleep well for a long time.
 
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