Question if H1B Amendment is Required ?

[Vinodh]

I am located in the city of St.Louis (STL), Missouri with a H1B Visa that is due for Extension on Mar, 2019. I am employed with a Major Indian IT company, with the client office located at Fenton, Missouri (MO). I have been with this client for ~4 years and my last filed LCA has the Fenton Client Office as well as my Home - located in Manchester,MO (~7 miles from Fenton) as the work locations. 

From Oct 2018, I switched to a different project within the same company, with the new client office located in Boston, but working remotely from the same residence in Manchester,MO. I do NO have to travel to Boston for any reason, even for a single day and its a completely remote project, with VPN.

Now, I would like to confirm on the following things with respect to USCIS VISA policies,

1)       Am I allowed to work remotely from STL to the client office located at Boston?

2)       Do I need an Amendment petition to be filed, since my client office location has changed, even though the new work location (Home) lies within the same MSA or area of intended employment as per the last filed LCA?

3)       My work location (at present - Home) is within 50 miles from my previous work location. Does this mean that Amendment is not required?

4)       If there is no need of an Amendment to be filed and only Extension, I assume the last filed LCA would still be applicable. Will the previous client's address be updated / removed from the LCA document? If not, as per USCIS, it might consider my previous Client office (Fenton, MO) as a work location, right?

5)   Will this be considered a risk, while appearing for Stamping, during my trip to India ?

[Vinodh]

Can someone please help with some suggestions ? I need to submit the extension petition ASAP and need to know whether Amendment is required, as I'm getting different answers from my different people..

[xTDx]

Please pose these questions to your employers attorneys. They know more about your case and can respond to you in a better way.

From what it looks to me, you are working for a new client but your work location specified on LCA has not changed. As a rule of thumb if your new work is satisfying the conditions of the LCA, you are okay. I would still suggest you to make use of your employer's and their attorneys resources.

[PJ09]

On 1/3/2019 at 8:14 AM, Vinodh said:

Can someone please help with some suggestions ? I need to submit the extension petition ASAP and need to know whether Amendment is required, as I'm getting different answers from my different people..

I’m in same situation. Let me know if you got any clarification.