221g on H1B

Take a look at this post before continue reading this post.
http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2007/05/migration-you-cant-stop-it-ii.html
http://sonyvellayani.blogspot.com/2007/04/evil-called-desi-consultant.html

These guys have done a fair job in researching about this H1B stuff and the raising number of applications for it year after year. I completely agree with them. And I can very much relate to it, as one of the deserving petitioner for the year 2006. Here are my views as a H1b applicant, ya still an applicant.

As most of the people in here, I also wanted to make some quick money for possibly doing higher studies in the US of A. One fine day I met one of my college senior online and he said he is on a H1B in the US. He also asked me if I would be interested and asked for my resume. The same day I got a call from this consultant and asked me to send over a couple of documents and 1000$ as a surety that I will join them in case everything (including the visa) goes through.

This money will be refunded once I join them. I thought it was fair enough. And I was tired of wooing managers appraisal after appraisal asking for a hike. It sure is a dog's life. So I did what the consultant had asked for. The date was sometime in May 2006. And the next day, after my consultant filed my petition, the 65000 visa for the year got finished. Last year it took around 55 days for the entire 65k to get filled up, but this year it ended the first day. All because of our beloved IT majors in our country who file H1b and will never send those to the US. A valid H1B visa is of no use unless otherwise the person is sent to the US, where he can shift to another employer after a minimum of 3 months payroll.

Now the half-a-year wait commences that is when the US CIS review your petition and sends a couple of documents over to the consultant. I will have to get these documents from the consultant and go to the visa interview. Ideally the work should commence on the October of every year for an H1B visa guy. But for me the visa documents came as late as November. And then THE DAY of my life came in. Its called the Visa interview.

The entire chennai embassy office looked crowded. The visa officer just asked me a couple of questions and gave the 221g form asking for more documents from the employer side. I saw a lot of rejects and 'more-documents' answers that day. These documents are to substantiate that there is really an employer, a job vacancy with specific job description, employer's Federal tax information and a bunch of other documents asking about the entire company history. My employer is yet to post me those documents. Until then my career will be a dangling reference.

This part of my life: Its called 'Waiting for ever'.

I think VISA is just luck or fate. I am a computer science graduate from one of the REC's and have a 3 years full time Non-fake experience in the IT industry. But still all it matters is the mood of the Visa Officer you are attending to. Generally chennai embassy is known for the rejects. Its probably because all IT folks of chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad flock there. A guy who goes to Delhi consulate is not even asked some basic question, but chennai embassy is really tough. Unless otherwise they are fully convinced they never say THE WORD.

The 221 form given to me asks for too many documents from the employer side like wage reports, project details, project marketing analysis, all employee names, their salaries etc,. Not to mention the fact, all of them have to be notarized. I don't know whether I will even get all these now.

There is another thing called 'Additional Administrative Processing' in short AAP. Its another way to make the visa applicant wait for whatsoever reasons. I have heard about people waiting for years on this. I just hope I don't end up with AAP if at all I get those documents.

I will talk about different types of consultants and how the employee gets locked with an employer with this H1b visa, in the following posts.