|
 Nandini
P Nair informs that the drop-box facility has been suspended for
non-immigrant visa applications
Dear readers, here is the latest news from the
Immigr-ation Services:
A notice from the consulate in Chennai indicates
that posts in India will soon end the drop-box procedure for non-immigrant
visa applications. The last day for the NIV drop-box in Chennai
was June 30, 2004. There is a special concession to the business
community, members of the Chennai Business Executive Programme may
continue submitting non-immigrant visa applications to TT Services
under the normal BEP procedures until July 15, 2004.
As of July 16, all non-immigrant visa applications
in Chennai will require an appointment for a personal interview
with a consular officer. Any non-immigrant visa applications received
by TT Services after close of business on July 15, 2004 will be
returned so that the applicant may schedule an appointment for a
personal interview.
The reason for ending the drop-box facility is
that beginning in July 2004, US consular sections in India will
start electronically collecting biometric data (scanning index fingerprints)
from all visa applicants, except those travelling on official government
business or who are under age 14 or over age 79.
The scanned fingerprint data collected at time
of visa application will be compared with fingerprint scans at the
US port-of-entry to prevent the use of US visas by impostors and
by those wanted for criminal offenses.
This is a worldwide programme required by the
US law and has already been impl-emented in more than 150 US consular
sections. The US visa offices in Frankfurt, Brussels, San Salvador,
and Guatemala were the first posts to begin this programme on September
22, 2003.
I had recently applied for my H1-B renewal and
it was approved. The lawyer thr-ough whom I had applied mailed it
to me but it got lost in the mail. Is there anyway I can get another
card re-issued? How long would it take? Please advise.
—Saurabh Sinha
You will need to apply for a duplicate approval
notice, this takes several months but it can be done, ask your lawyer
to get started on the process.
I am a green card holder. I had left the US in
November 2003 and plan to return in October 2004. I have been staying
in India for these many months because my mother-in-law died and
her affairs had to be looked into—my wife is her only issue.
We have made an affidavit to that effect. Will there be any problem
at the time of entry, after all we are returning within 365 days?
—Rohit Bhalla
Green card holders can travel outside the US
for up to six months with no issue at re-entry, but from six months
to one year, the port-of-entry can deny you entry.
In most cases they do not if it is within one
year, but they can. You need to be ready with proof that your mother-in-law
had died and that you needed to stay behind to take care of her
affairs.
I am an Indian citizen and on an F-1 visa in the
US. I want to know whether I can change my F-1 status to the H1-B
before completion of my Masters degree there. I am a pharmacist
and doing MS at a US university.
—S Ghanekar
You can change your status to H1-B even if you
have not completed your Masters deg-ree as long as you have a four-year
bachelor’s degree in the relevant field.
Nandini P Nair is a US Immigration Attorney
based in New York, US. E-mail: dininair@aol.com
|
