My husband"s H1 is in extension for last 10 mths.Is it legal to transfer his H1 to another company now?

Question

His i94 expired in Sep. 07 and his company applied for H1 extension to keep him in status which is under process for the last 10 months now. In this scenario, can he transfer his H1 to some other company?

Answer 1

As long as he has a receipt # for that extension that was filed BEFORE Sep. 07 (ie. before his other one expired), he is still in status while they make a decision. You can check www.uscus.gov for the status of his case using that receipt #.

He will absolutely not be able to transfer his H-1 to another company until he receive a decision on whether or not his extension has been approved. If the extension gets denied (ie. if he did not file for it until after his other H-1B was already expired), his employer will have to immediately terminate his employment and he will need to leave the country within 10 days if he ever wants to be able to come back in the future.

10 months is a long time, extensions usually do not take that long. I would check and see what the holdup is. Maybe his petition hit the wrong service center or something. Another thing you can do is try to convince your current employer to premium process the current petition that is pending. If they do that, you will get an answer back within 15 days, but it will cost them $1500. With the current rediculous processing times, I would always recommend that you pressure your employers to premium process any I-129's that you file, otherwise your visa will be half expired by the time you finally get a decision on whether or not you get it :)