Legal Question in Immigration Law in California

Do you mean you have an expired H-1B currently in your passport? If so, how many years have you had H-1B status for? More information is needed to assist you.

Visa or status had expired? Are you in USA in a valid H1B status or abroad? etc etc.

You need to clarify your situation so an attorney can suggest anything.

If you�d like to schedule a confidential telephone or email legal consultation, need advice or help, please let me know and I�d be glad to help you. Contact email address: Attorney [@] law-visa-usa.com or LubaSmal [@] yahoo.com . I offer legal consultations and can assist in matters of the U.S. federal immigration law to clients from all 50 States and internationally.

Note: The above response is provided for legal information purposes only and should not be considered a legal advice; it doesn�t create an attorney-client relationship. If you would like to request a follow-up confidential advice on your specific situation and regarding U.S.A. immigration-related issues, we can offer a paid consultation by telephone or email to clients from all States and globally. Please visit our website http://www.law-visa-usa.com/contact_us.html for more details.

You can file an H-1 petition, however, you cannot extend your stay if your status is expired. If your status has not expired but your visa has, that's OK. You can extend your stay as part of the H-1 petition and apply for the visa abroad as is required.

The visa is a document you apply for outside the U.S. and is used for the purpose of entering the country in a certain status. For H-1, you first need the petition approved. If your H-1 status has expired, you will have to explain to a consular officer why he should issue you the visa and prove how overstaying won't happen again. The longer you've been in expired status the more difficult this is. After staying in the U.S. in expired status for 180 days or more, then the visa should not be issued for three years. If expired by more than a year, you should not be able to have the visa issued for 10 years. There is a nonimmigrant waiver for cases like this to overcome these bars to admissibility when entering the U.S. temporarily.

If you are lucky enough to have a green card petitioned for you by a family member, you might qualify for an extreme hardship waiver. If you're filed for the green card by an employer and have no close U.S. citizen or resident family, then you are inadmissible as an immigrant until such time as you do have such relative and can prove extreme hardship to him/her/them.

For further information, feel free to contact me at 818 609 1953 or [email protected].

The above is general information not case specific. For case specific advice, an attorney client relationship must exist. To enter into such a relationship, an agreement would be entered into by you and me together, but not before then.

Sincerely,

Alice Yardum-Hunter, Attorney at Law

Certified Specialist Immigration and Nationality Law, State Bar of CA, Bd. of Legal Specialization