Travelling while H4 status is in pending with approved H1B

Hi,

I have a situation as below. It will be greatly helpful if you can provide assistance.

My company filed my H1B Extension and my wife’s H4 Extension separately. Since it was taking long time and my DL was expiring I asked my company to convert my H1B Extension to Premium Processing and they did but since my wife’s H4 was filed separately it was not converted to Premium Processing.

Now, I have received approval for my H1B till 02/04/2017, but my wife’s H4 Extension is still in Processing state. I am planning to go to India along with my wife for a vacation in another 2 - 3 months. At that time we will be going for Visa Stamping (Dropbox as I am eligible for Interview Wavier). I have few questions as below.

  1. If my wife’s H4 Extension doesn’t get approved by then will there be any problem in the Visa Stamping?
  2. Can she get the H4 visa stamp based on my approved H1B even her H4 is still in processing?
  3. What will happen if she gets the H4 visa stamping based on my approved H1B and then her H4 extension is approved?
  4. If my wife’s H4 gets approved before I leave, I am planning to file H1 & H4 Extension before I travel. Since I will have approved H1 & H4 till 02/04/2017 can I travel out of the country and re-enter again before 02/04/2017 even if my H1 & H4 Extensions are in processing state? or is it advisable to file for the H1 & H4 extension after returning back?

Thanks,

  1. No issues

  2. Yes

  3. Her H-4 extension would be abandoned as soon as she leaves US. This is b/c her I-94 record associated with extension petition would be closed on departure.

  4. If extensions are pending and you leave US, those extensions will not come w/ I-94 extension. Make sure you stay inside US through the entire processing of H-1 and H-4 extensions.

Hi Sundar,

I am in same boat , Can you please share your experiece.