Just want to post my success story to help all those silent sufferers who are looking for guidance on Vacation recapture.
My 6th year H1 expired on Oct-13-2004. My company filed for LC in Feb-2004 and I did not meet criteria for 7th year extension.
My lawyer filed for vacation(??) recapture of about 6 months (1 month each visits to India every year and not 6 consecutive months). He also requested to recapture the 1.5 month period when my first H1 was approved vs the day I landed in USA *( H1 got approved OCt-1998 and I landed Dec-199
. He applied the petition via Premium processing.
INS responded in 10 business days approving only the 1.5 months and refused to approve the 6 months vacation recapture. Fortunately I had a good lawyer and we reap pealed the case (Premium processing again) asking to recapture only 2 different periods of my vacation accounting to 60 days.
This time I obtained medical certificates from Indian Hospital where I underwent treatment during my visits. I was not really hopeful this would get approved and started looking for other options like pre-approved LC.
I got a response from INS yesterday that my petition was approved and I was granted the 2 Months I had requested. I will worry about 7th year later.
While there are lot of postings and information on how to recapture time but there is no formula for success.. INS is not very clear what it means by meaningfully Interuptive. My lawyer even quoted previous successful attempts to go to Federal Court if INS does not approve my petetion in my filing documents ( Very Very polished way)
IF you need assistance in documentation and format for medical cert please let me know I am more than willing to help you after all I went through the same threads in this forum and else where looking for help and guidance.
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