Urgent - fired before joining on new H1!

[explorer76]

My wife worked with a company for two years on OPT and recently got her H1 visa stamped so she could resume work with them. She entered US on H1 in mid May and was planning to resume the work on mid-June with her new H1. However some differences arose with her company and they decided to let her go. So now we seem to be in a tough spot in terms of her status.

She has requested her company to let her join and retain her for a couple of months so she could try and find another job and get her H1 transferred. However there is a good chance they may not agree. If they do not allow her to join then how much time does she have before she goes out of status? Also if she is able to find another job quickly, would she be able to do an H1 transfer considering that she never started the job on her current H1, and would not have any recent paystubs. Would appreciate any responses in this regard as we need to figure out our strategy pretty quickly!

[immihelp]

What visa are you on?

If possible, try to apply for change of status to your dependent as soon as possible. Then she can search for job and get H1.

[explorer76]

What visa are you on?

If possible, try to apply for change of status to your dependent as soon as possible. Then she can search for job and get H1.

Thanks for your response!

I am on F1, so you would suggest that we apply for her change of status to F2?. Would that also mean that she would not remain eligible for the quota exempt H1 "transfer". If yes then that means she won't be able to get back to work until October 2014, right?, considering that this year's quota is already finished.

Also we are not clear about what date would she be considered out of status - so far she has not been given an official termination notice and release documents etc. When she landed with her H1 a couple of weeks ago, she was on leave and expected to resume on June 15th. So she was obviously in status at that time. My understanding is that she should be in status until the company actually gives her the termination notice. However since she wouldn't have any recent paystub to show so I don't know if she could establish that she was in status. Not sure what implications would that have in terms of her change of status to F2 or if she finds a job and tries to file for an H1 transfer.