H-4 visa extension approved. Can I travel now?
My H-4 visa extension has been approved, I mean the USCIS has sent me an approval notice with the I-94 record card. Now it clearly says, this is not a visa. What do I need to do in order to travel to India, do I have to go to a US consulate here, to get a visa stamped in my passport, because in order to travel through Europe we need a valid US Visa or travel through Dubai , which doesn't require any visa, and then get stamped in the US consulate while coming back? I am confused and do not know what is the next step after approval notice. By the way my spouse H-1B visa was also extended while in US by the Employer. But, my spouse hasn't gone out for visa stamping yet, will this effect my visa stamping?
When you travel abroad, in order to return to the USA, you must first obtain a visa stamp from a US consulate in (any) country that you are visiting. Check the consulate web site to make an appointment and what documents you should bring for H-4 visa stamping. H-1B visa stamp is usually not a precondition to H-4 visa.
I am on H1 and my wife (on H4 visa) was out of status for more than 8 months. We received the approval nunc-pro tunc. Just to give little background, we found about this when we were planning to process her F1 visa. We browsed through all known forums and short listed two firms, Murthy's and Rajivji's. After the first consultation with Rajiv, I got some ray of hope and thought of retaining Rajivji's firm at that very moment. I omitted the options of retaining my employer's corporate firm and Murthy's firm. Rajivji was very thorough about our case and even had a discussion with my employer to get all the inputs.
I want to convey my special thanks to Rajiv's attorney Ms Sheena Gill. She was very prompt during the preparation of this case.I really appreciate her enormous follow-ups with USCIS, without which we could not have achieved this success. Thanks to Rajivji and his entire team, they literally gave us a new life. Winning a nunc-pro-tunc case is not a piece of cake, a lot depends on luck and the skill of the law firm. I would highly recommend Rajiv's firm to anybody for complicated case like this.