Interim wait in India between F1 and H1B - EE profile questions

Hi folks,

I got picked up in this year’s H1B lottery, but ran out of F1 OPT while waiting for the H1B to be approved. I’m currently in India and in the process of transferring to my company’s office in India for the time (~ few months) it might take for my H1B to be approved.

I’ve just submitted my EE application with a CRS score of 481 and have some questions I’d love you folks’ thoughts on:

  1. Is it ok for me to change my country of residence from India to USA post ITA? Alternately, is it cleaner for me to keep declining ITAs till I’ve moved back to the US on H1B?
  2. I know that PCCs need to be issued after the last departure from countries of non-residence, and in the last 6 months for the country of residence. How is this affected if my country of residence changes during the express entry process?
  3. I’ve truncated my job history to the duration I was working in the US, since I haven’t officially transferred to India yet. Can I update this post ITA to include the Indian stint?

Thanks!

  1. You can apply from anywhere, no need to decline ITA.
  2. Any country you live in for more than 6 months in the last 10 years needs a PCC. Just get one for India and one for US.
  3. As long as the letter signer is OK specifying “mm-dd-yy to present” and the details regarding location change, it shouldn’t matter. If you are drafting the letter just mention this fact. For same employer you don’t really need to add two different positions, unless the job description changes significantly.

Thanks, @avj!

Just to clarify about the “country of residence” field and job details section of the EE application: these both can be updated even after accepting an ITA, and doing so doesn’t cause additional scrutiny?

It kind of depends on the definition of “transfer to India”. If you’re still working on the same team in US, doing the same work, then it’s the same job. You’re probably just, you know, working from home kinda thing (for 6 months!).

If you’re changing teams and division etc all on paper then it’s probably two separate jobs in the EE profile. The reason is that if it’s asking for “location of work” and you’ve switched teams etc it makes more sense to separate them out. If you’re in same team then youre just taking a break and continuing in US. But you have to mention work locations separately anyway.

So I think the best option is to get a reference letter that clarifies these things. So make sure the letter mentions your work locations and the dates accordingly. Also mention " - to present". And job duties and responsibilities should be clearly mentioned in multiple bullet points (separately for the two locations if that’s the case). Then upload the same letter for both positions (or two letters if boss is willing to sign two separate letters). Also, mentioning this in letter of explanation is also fine.

1 Like