My story on how I got my H1B

Hello everyone, I would like to share my experience towards getting the H1B visa. I’m happy to let you know that I am joining the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as a postdoctoral fellow. I am very grateful to CSG, as early discussions on this forum encouraged me to begin applications even before thesis submission. My PI offered to do an expedited processing of the H1B visa, and I was also assigned an immigration lawyer for the same.

I chose Mumbai as the city of choice for my visa interview, but there were no dates for H1B available until Feb 2017!! (They have now increased availability, but from July-Oct it was tough to get dates within 3 months for this visa category). So I did the biometrics at the VAC in Mumbai, and had my consular interview at Kolkata,as that was the only place where dates were available. I’m sure many of you know this already, but just for the benefit of the minority (I was one of them) who don’t, it is perfectly fine to take visa appointments anywhere in India, as long as you mention the same city on your DS-160. In case you have already submitted the DS-160 and then see no dates available in your city of choice, or if you need to correct and/or update information, you can select the “Retrieve an Application” option on the site where you filled the form, enter your previous visa application ID, and then select “Create a New Application”. Your personal information will then populate into the new application. In the new application, update the details and proceed further. Applicants who have completed a new DS-160 after scheduling an appointment are required to carry both the old and new DS-160 confirmation pages to their Visa Application Center appointment for biometrics. 

At the Kolkata consulate, I was given a few minutes to explain my current research in IISc and future research in USA, and I was told that further administrative processing would be needed before they could grant me the visa. They kept my passport, and handed me a form which stated that my application was pending under section 221G, and I needed to email them a detailed word document describing my current research as well as proposed research in USA and its practical applications, following which I would get my visa in 2-4 weeks. Two other postdoctoral candidates at the consulate were also given the same form, and this is pretty common for researchers working in fields belonging to the ‘Technology Alert List’ that includes biomedical research, nuclear physics, chemical engineering among others. After a very tense and frustrating wait where I kept imagining the worst case scenario (that my visa would get rejected), I finally got my visa after 3 weeks 🙂