Applying H4-H1 for my wife who is in India

[pulsar]

Hi All,

we are applying h4-h1 for my wife. She is currently in India and is coming back on April 10th. As we will be sending our package by April 1st, what our employer is saying is, we need to have the stamp at POE to be there in her passport before we send our documents(passport copies) for H1 application to USCIS. Otherwise we need to apply for COS after H1 approval. Is it true?

I was under the impression that we need to apply for COS only when our status changes if we are out of US. So, we booked her ticket on april 10th..now, ticket is around 500$ expensive if she comes sometime around march 25th. Just trying to confirm my question before making change to her ticket. Please help guysss...

Thankyou

[pulsar]

please help guyss

[raghvi]

please help guyss

The employer is right. If you are out of US on the day of filing you can only file it as Consular process not as Change of Status(COS) and once the petition is approved then you would again have to file an amendment to convert to COS.

Its better to spend extra 500 USD now rather than go through extra wait time and legal/processing cost , and of course the anxiety to convert from consular to COS later on.

This is my opinion not legal advice.

[pulsar]

The employer is right. If you are out of US on the day of filing you can only file it as Consular process not as Change of Status(COS) and once the petition is approved then you would again have to file an amendment to convert to COS.

Its better to spend extra 500 USD now rather than go through extra wait time and legal/processing cost , and of course the anxiety to convert from consular to COS later on.

This is my opinion not legal advice.

Thankyou