My knowledge comes from immigration lawyers, sponsoring companies, and H-1B holders themselves, all of which spend tens of thousands of dollars on these things. They would have had to miss something, which I doubt, so it's a bit presumptuous of you to say it is incorrect. I am talking about the re-stamping process in which you are able to leave the U.S. and come back, so maybe I used the wrong words. As far as I understand, if you never do this stamping process, you can just stay in the U.S., never leaving while your H-1B remains valid.

The process is so overly complicated, it's hard to track. I am not aware of any process in which you can re-stamp an H-1B inside the U.S. You meed to do an in-person interview, and these are done at U.S. Consulates and Embassies, none of which are inside the U.S.

Of course, it's difficult to quickly find the information on the official U.S. websites, but here are sites that explain it.

http://www.greencardapply.com/question/question17/H1B_Visa_S...

https://www.h1base.com/visa/work/h1b%20visa%20stamping/ref/1...

yes you are right. You eventually need a visa label as soon as you abroad.

Upon renewal even the most trivial thing can be used with no transparency or accountability or review and keep you out of the country for life. Bam. Can't get back home, stuck in India, everything left behind. That's it. I know because I've had several clients lives ruined by thus lunacy.

Change of status won't give a visa "stamp". That will be needed to get out and get back in. Visa stamps are only issued from consulates outside the US and are subject to vagaries of weather patterns and cosmic radiation.

OK, but that happens only once in the first six years in the U.S. for an H-1B doesn't it?

Initial visa issuance (for three years) will be at a consulate abroad by definition, and then one more visit to get the extension stamped (for the next three years).

My experience of the whole process was much less dramatic than many here. I was advised to budget for a week out of the country (for consular processing of an L-1A extension), and it ended up taking rather less.

Is the real problem after the six year term when extensions are done on a year-by-year basis for those with pending labor certification or backlogged priority date for an immigrant visa?

Visa stamp's term depends on the country: it's reciprocal to the equivalent visa Americans get from that country. If an equivalent visa for an American is 1 year then the citizens of the country get 1 year visa to the US as well. If it's 10 years - same thing (obviously not applicable to H1B since its max term is 3). Visa fees are following the same rule, foreigners are charged the same their country charges Americans (and it's free if Americans get free visas there).

Having said that, the story from the OP does not add up: you don't need to renew the visa stamp to stay in the country. The stamp is for crossing the border. I, for one, never renewed my H1B stamp since I did not have a need to leave the country. If I were to leave, I'd just go to a consulate and get a new stamp to get back so having visas stamped only outside of the country does not appear as such a hurdle - you only need the stamp if you are already abroad.

> Having said that, the story from the OP does not add up: you don't need to renew the visa stamp to stay in the country. The stamp is for crossing the border.

My story does add up. We needed to leave the U.S. to visit China, and we also visit Canada sometimes, hence necessitating the stamping process to take place at a U.S. Consulate in China. And it was this process that ended up being indeed a massive hurdle. In fact, so massive it is a major part of what kept my fiancee from returning. This is one of the cruxes of the story.

I am sorry then. This:

>We were visiting China in January to both see her family and friends and to do the yearly renewal of her re-entry visa.

sounds like the renewal per se was a goal of your visit. If you are saying that you went to visit China and had to get a new visa stamp because the current one expired then it indeed adds up.

It is both. There is a dependency in the sense of us going to China necessitated her getting the stamp. But if she wants to leave the U.S. to any country, Canada for example, and return to the U.S., then she needs to go back to China to do the stamping process to enable that. So it's basically required unless you want to just stay in the U.S. for multiple years straight, which is unlikely for international people and also for people in general that like to travel.

> OK, but that happens only once in the first six years in the U.S. for an H-1B doesn't it?

No. At least for Chinese citizens, it is either every year or every two years that you must renew the stamp to be able to leave the U.S. and return.

I would advise not trying to dilute the impact of the rules just because you don't know or didn't experience them yourself. You aren't mentioning the country you are from, which also confuses the matter. These things change depending upon the origin country.