H1B Amendment / extension denied with reason Specialty Occupation

Hello,

I had a denial with my current employer A for amendment/extension with denial reason of “specialty occupation”.

Employer A is refiling H1B with different LCA title

Now my employer A is re-filing the amendment/extension with different LCA title and other changes in regular processing.

H1B transfer offer from Employer B

I also have another offer from employer B who is doing a H1 transfer in premium processing.

i94 expires in 2 weeks from now

My current i-94 will expire in 2 weeks and in the mean time I will have both Employer A petition and Employer B petition filed.

Do not want to join H1B transfer employer B on receipt

I don’t want to join employer B on receipt yet and wanted to wait until we have a approval.

My question is since the decisions of both the petitions will be out only after my current i-94 expires.

What are the options I have for the below.

  1. I continue to work with Employer A on the receipt and employer B transfer petition is approved.

  2. I continue to work with Employer A on the receipt notice and employer B petition is denied.
    Please do let me know.

Hi @sandy54

If employer B H1B transfer application is approved

If your employer B petition is approved, it would be your choice to choose either Employer A or B.

You can keep working with Employer A even if Employer B’s petition is approved.
There is no compulsion to join employer B as nothing really gets transferred from one H1B employer to another employer in reality.

We use the term ‘H1B transfer’ in daily conversation for ease of understanding only.
When your H1B transfer gets approved, your existing and old H1B application still remain valid until the employer withdraws it.

If Employer B H1B transfer petition is DENIED

If employer B’s H1B transfer petition is denied, you can still keep working for Employer A on the basis of A’s H1B extension filed before i94 expiry.
This allows you to work up-to 240 days after i94 expiry when your H1B extension is pending.

Let me know if you need more information.

Hi Anil gupta,

Thank you very much for the quick reply. If the employer B’s premium transfer is denied and I continue to work on receipt of my current employer A amendment/extension application (under 240-day rule). Do I have to worry about the recent NTA rule ? since the employers B decision is only known after the i-94 expiry. Please let me know.

Yes, the recent USCIS NTA rule is definitely a big concern once your i94 has expired.

The rule is new and we still have to see what USCIS really does with such cases.

Legally, they are now allowed to issue NTA if your petition is denied and your i94 has expired.
So, your case will certainly fall in that category.

We are advising people to file their H1B extensions /Amendment and Transfers well before their i94 expiry and that too in PREMIUM to avoid the NTA situation as much as possible.

We have covered the NTA scenarios in detail in this article:

Thank you for the reply @Anil_Gupta. Just wanted to know if you have any better suggestion in my scenario.

Especially as i have the i-94 expiring very soon. Do you think the way my current petitions are .

  1. current employer with regular and
  2. new employer initiating a new H1 for another job offer.

Please let me know.

Well, the only thing you can do right now is to get your Employer A application also upgraded to ‘Premium’ and get the result as early as possible.

If not, then i would suggest to join Employer B if their petition gets approved.

It is better to have something approved in your hand rather than waiting for result of regular application.

The chances of your Employer A’s H1B extension rejection AGAIN are very high as it has already been rejected once.
I would suggest to not take any risk in today’s un-stable environment and join Employer B, if they get their H1B transfer approved.