By Darius Amiri, Rose Law Group Immigration Dept. Chair
The State Department is set to launch a pilot program, beginning this month, which will allow H-1B Visa holders to renew their visas inside the United States rather than having to travel abroad.
The H-1B visa, available for foreign born specialty occupation workers, is a popular nonimmigrant visa which allows foreign born specialty occupation workers to be employed in the United States if they are selected from an annual lottery drawing, or work for certain types of 501c3 organization.
This pilot program will be opened at first to 20,000 candidates, and only those H-1B holders who were issued visas from consular posts in Canada and India. The goal would be to expand from this pilot program to all H-1B holders if the rollout is successful.
This change would be a huge advantage for certain H-1B employees who often have to travel great distances to get their H-1B visa issued or renewed, often interrupting employment at great cost to their employer, not to mention their own costs for travel.
Please keep in mind that this is a gradual rollout of a pilot program to begin later this month, assuredly some bumps in the road are expected, but this is a good development and a pragmatic step in the right direction for the hundreds of thousands of H-1B visa holders currently residing in the United States.
