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3 More Reasons to Get Your H1B Visa

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

Some obvious benefits of being an H1B visa holder include being able to change jobs without loosing one’s visa status, bringing their spouses and dependents to live with them in the US, and holding employers to stringent labor standards to guard against exploitation. Besides these benefits, here are three deeper advantages to this kind of visa.

  1. Part-time employment option.

You can get an H1B visa for a part time job. So long as your job still requires a bachelor’s degree or higher, you can still get H1B visa status and enjoy the freedoms and protections that come along with it. This is a great option for students coming to the United States for education but cannot afford it without also working part time.

  1. Dual Intent

Unlike travel visas and other short-term work visas, when you apply for an H1B visa, you don’t have to prove that you intend to return to your country of origin. Many visas require you to prove that you don’t intend to stay in the United States once your visa expires. This means you have to have a certain amount of money in your bank account, strong ties and responsibilities in your country of origin, and other indicators that would prove you don’t tend to stay. With an H1B visa, you don’t have to prove any of this to get approved. In fact, many people intend to use their H1B visa as a gateway to US naturalization and citizenship, and that’s just fine.

  1. Gateway to a Green Card

A common trajectory for H1B visa holders is obtaining their Green Card. The initial H1B visa is for three years, then visa holders can apply for another three-year extension. After that, employers will often decide to sponsor visa holders for a Green Card so they can continue to live in the United States and work for their company. Since H1B visas allow for families to come and live with the H1B visa holders, this is a great way to introduce and integrate families into a permanent life in the United States.

An H1B visa is the perfect visa for long-term intentions. Whether you’ve decided you want to ultimately get Green Card sponsorship, or if you’re not sure where your career path will ultimately take you, the H1B visa offers a unique freedom and flexibility for you and your family.

Sheila Danzig is the director of Career Consulting International at www.TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credential evaluation agency. They specialize in difficult cases and RFEs, Denials, NOIDs, 3-year degrees, etc. and offer a free review of all H1B, E2, and I140 education at http://www.ccifree.com/.

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Addressing the Education RFE

Credential Evaluation, Visa Approvals

Don’t panic if you get an RFE. This means your petition is under consideration and you get another chance to build a solid case for approving your petition. Take this opportunity by reading over your RFE carefully with your employer and understand exactly what is being asked of you.

The two main education situations require you to submit a detailed credential evaluation with your transcripts. The first stems from a recent change in USCIS standards regarding your degree. In the recent past – as well as in the present when it comes to hiring domestic employees – you can meet the requirements for a specialty occupation by having a degree in a field related to your field of employ. Now, the USCIS requires your degree exactly match your field of employ.

So what if you have the right degree but the wrong major? No problem! A detailed credential evaluation can do two things to remedy the situation. First, we can take a close look at the courses you took to show that you did, in fact, specialize in your field of employ even if your major doesn’t clearly reflect it. Secondly, if you have work experience in your field of employ, we can convert years of work experience into college credit hours.

The second common education-related misunderstanding that can trigger an RFE to come your way is your degree from a different country than the United States. If you earned your degree outside of the United States, this means your bachelor’s degree came from a country with a different academic system. Many of these systems have three-year bachelor’s degrees instead of the US four-year degree. At the USCIS, they look at your three-year degree and all they see is the missing fourth year. You literally need to spell out the value of your education in terms of US equivalence. Again, you can do this with a detailed credential evaluation that can take a close look at the academic content of your degree. In most cases, the only difference between a three-year degree and a US four-year degree is density. You get more classroom contact hours each year with a three-year degree and by converting classroom contact hours into US college credit hours you end up with the academic equivalence of a US four-year degree. No problem. You’ve just got to order a detailed evaluation from an agency with the authority to make these conversions.

For a free consultation on your academic RFE, visit us online at cciFree.com or call any time at 1.800.771.4723. We’re always here to help you.

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Simple Tips to Streamline Your H1B Petition Process

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


st is rapidly approaching. It’s officially crunch time. That means you’re finishing up your applications, gathering up the rest of your education and immigration documents, triple-checking your work, and getting your credential evaluations ordered. The USCIS is required to accept H1B petitions for a full business week before closing regardless of how many petitions they receive in that time. Last year it was literally hundreds of thousands for just 65,000 H1B visas. That means you need to have your petition submitted on April 1st and you’ve got to make it easy on the USCIS worker evaluating your petition to approve it.

How can you make this happen? Simple. By making the USCIS worker’s job easier.

Submit all of your documents, applications, and evaluations together, in order, on time, and to the correct address. Go over your forms to make sure all of the information in your H1B packet is accurate and consistent. If you’ve answered questions inconsistently that’s a big red flag and will land you in the rejected pile.

Make sure to always put your signature in blue ink so the USCIS worker evaluating your petition can tell the difference between you and your employer’s signatures and signatures on original documents and copies of original documents. This will streamline the process for the USCIS – who has literally hundreds of thousands of packets to go through – and will make reading your petition a more enjoyable experience. Remember, people will be deciding whether or not you can get your visa. These people want to have a good day. Make theirs a good day by making their job easy and they will approve your visa.

You also want to be sure to submit a credential evaluation along with your transcripts and diplomas if your education is from outside of the United States. You need to clearly show the US equivalent of the value of your education and the only way to do this is with a thorough evaluation from an authorized credential evaluation agency.

At CCI, all of our evaluators are experts in international education with the authority to convert work experience and classroom contact hours into college credit hours to clearly show the value of the academic content of your degree.

We are available 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. We will always answer the phone, text you back, or return your email promptly. We understand the time crunch you face and offer rush services on your credential evaluation order. We will also work off of emailed copies of your academic documents to save you time and hassle.

Remember, no matter how hard you are feeling the crunch, it is essential to always make time to double-check your work, make sure you’re sending the right documents to the right addresses, and to make sure you have everything the USCIS has asked for in the proper order.]]>

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