Notices of intent to deny, notices of intent to revoke, requests for evidence, and outright denials are rising on employment petitions, and the people most exposed are H-1B and L-1 principals. Houston immigration attorney Rahul Reddy, of Reddy Neumann Brown PC, has a single piece of timing advice that follows from it: get the decision before the I-94 expires.
mic What the Attorney Says
“The best thing I suggest is to get the result of their visa status before their I-94 expires. I’m speaking of the main applicant. The dependent applicants, we don’t see H-4s or L-2s denials at all. It’s only H-1Bs and L-1s. These are the things we get the denial.”
The reason timing matters is that a denial while you are still in status leaves options that a denial after it lapses does not. If an H-1B expires on September 30 and the decision comes by then, a denied petition can still be followed by another extension filing or a transfer to a different employer. Wait until October for the adjudication, and a denial means there is no valid I-94 to fall back on.
mic What the Attorney Says
“If the denial comes in, you can always file one more extension. You can transfer to a different company before September 30th. But if you wait until October to get the adjudication done, once you’re in October, if the denial comes in, you’ll have to leave the country.”
Leaving the country is where a second, unsettled problem enters: the $100,000 fee on H-1B petitions filed for workers abroad. That proclamation was vacated nationwide by a federal court in Massachusetts, but the litigation is not over. Reddy’s business partner Steven Brown described the fee’s current status as a contradiction: dead on the merits, but still being enforced.
mic What the Attorney Says
“The best way to describe it is it’s kind of a zombie. It’s dead. The rule is gone. The court said you have to vacate this rule. But the court didn’t grant a stay. It granted an administrative stay so they can seek a stay at the First Circuit.”
Asked plainly whether the fee is being applied, Brown did not hedge.
mic What the Attorney Says
“As of today, yes, it is applicable. The judge stayed his decision.”
That uncertainty is why it helps to be inside the country with valid status when the decision lands. A worker who is adjudicated before the I-94 expires never has to leave, and never has to test whether the fee attaches on a new filing from abroad. The same applicant who falls out of status and is forced to depart faces both the hurdles of re-entry through visa stamping and the live possibility of the fee.
Brown’s operational advice tracks Reddy’s: do not let the clock run.
mic What the Attorney Says
“Get your decision before the I-94, do premium if you have to, just because it saves you a lot of headache.”
He added that even setting the fee aside, consular processing is its own ordeal right now, with backlogged appointments and prolonged administrative processing, “especially in Mission India.” For a principal on an expiring I-94, the steps are straightforward: file early, use premium processing where it is available, and resolve the petition while there is still room to extend or transfer without leaving.