I spent all morning researching this and can’t find a conclusive answer. My girlfriend is Japanese and living here in the US on an H1 visa which needs to be renewed. I have heard two different versions of what she needs to do to get it done:
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Travel to the American embassy in Japan, submit, then wait as long as 3 months for them to get it done, if she is even approved. Needless to say this option sucks.
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Acquire the services of a travel agency, lawyer, or other company that can expidite this process. Some claim to have contacts overseas where you send them the info and a payment, they take care of everything without the person having to go to a US embassy in another country (Japan).
It sounds fishy, but I’m really worried they will try and keep her in Japan because of paperwork, stupidity, or the whim of a immigration official. She’s legally here and all is in order, but my impression is these things don’t always go as planned. Any advice is greatly appreciated, thanks!
Which U.S. Consulate/Embassy is she going to? Each has its own specific procedures. Some will allow renewals by mail from outside the country, and some won’t, and some will, but only in certain situations.
Here’s a link for you:
http://usembassy.state.gov/
Also, she may be able to renew her visa by mailing a new application with her passport and fee to the State Department, but a) only if she’s already got an H-1B visa which is less than 60 days away from expiring, or has been expired for less than 1 year. Link:
http://travel.state.gov/nonimmigrantvisas.html#renew
Please post more details, and I’ll take a crack at them if you want. Is she going to need to travel internaitonally anytime soon, or is this just a failsafe measure?
Eva Luna, Immigraiton Paralegal
Eva, thanks so much for the quick reply.
She is living in Bensalem PA (just outside of Philadelphia) and working for a Japanese company (with me) located here. I just talked to her again at lunch, she doesn’t actually have the Visa yet, but rather whatever “permission slip” type of paperwork that basically says she is eligible, now she needs the stamp or whatever it is. She has been told she needs to go back to Japan and visit the American Embassy there to get her Visa which would ensure she can travel freely between there and here. Really I’m just worried about her going back because of all the BS I hear regarding the employees attitudes in immigration. I don’t want to get a phone call from her in Japan in tears because some asshole immigration person is having a bad day and wants to take it out on her, or if some stupid paperwork mistake happens. It took me forever to find her, I don’t want to lose her now to international politics! If there is a way to get the visa without the risk of being denied re-entry into the country I’d like to take it regardless of cost. The 8-10 week wait is rediculous too, that will be VERY difficult to deal with if its a loss of 2 months pay. Thanks again for the info, if you could point me in the right direction I would really appreciate it!
If she’s had an H-1B visa in the past, and it’s either within 60 days of expiring or has been expired for less than a year, AND she doesn’t need to travel anywhere for 10-12 weeks, then I suggest the revalidation route. The speciifcs are listed on the second link I provided above. Under normal circumstances, everything is handled by mail. She will have to relinquish her passport for processing, but she can remain in the U.S. and won’t be stuck anywhere.
If she submits the application and then finds out she will need to travel internationally after all, she can write a fax and ask them to return her passport without the visa, but then she’ll have to get one overseas anyway. I’ve never heard of an H-1B visa in Japan requiring 3 months’ processing time.
Doesn’t her company have an HR or Legal staff person who handles issues like this? With most of my firm’s clients, the person who handled the logistics for the H-1B on the employer side would normally address these questions.
We do, but at $150 an hour or whatever insane rate he charges I’d rather take the easy way out here!
What she actually has is Form I-797, the precursor to the actual Visa. What we’re trying to avoid is a trip back to Japan if its not necessary because if there are any problems whatsoever she could be denied entry back into the country. They’ve told her she needs to go to the US Embassy in Japan to get that Visa stamp, I’ve been told by others that she can use a travel agency to do this for her without having to leave the country at all. If so, I’d love the name of any company that can do it, none of the ones I’ve called offer the service.
Bongmaster, I’m talking about her company’s internal HR or legal staff. Someone at her employer had to sign the H-1B petition in order for INS to approve it, and not all companies farm out H-1B petitions to firms like mine; some actually prepare them in-house. Either way, someone inside her company should know who handles this stuff for her; if she doesn’t know who handled the H-1B paperwork, I would advise her to start with her regular internal HR person and go from there. It’s entirely possible that someone inside her company will handle the whole thing for her, at absolutely no cost to her.
Otherwise, check out the links I provided, particularly the second one. It provides very specific instructions for the revalidation process. If she meets the requirements for revalidation, she may never have to leave the U.S. at all in order to get a new visa. And if you don’t know which specific consulate or embassy she was planning to visit in Japan the next time she travels, then I can’t help you, because each one has its own specific set of procedures and requirements. I don’t know them all by heart (and they change all the time anyway), but I do know how to use the information available. That’s why they pay me the big bucks (yeah, right!).