Please submit your request for withdrawal of your previous petition

[dhoola]

Hi,

I attended visa interview at chennai on February 15th 2013. Stamping was successful. This is new petition on EC Model.

I got 221g earlier in November on EVC Model. My petition was sent back to USCIS. So, my Vendor agreed to file for petition in Premium Processing. Got my approval and went for stamping and everything went fine. I did not receive passport till today. So, I contacted DOS and they told it is going adminstrative Processing.

I was surprised as VO told visa is approved and he asked about my previous petition and told that it was refused under 221(g) and now this is new petition.

Today I received my passport and I got a 221(g) sheet which says "Please submit your request for withdrawal of your previous petition".To my surprise I checked on USCIS website with my old petition and it went to Initial Review. Earlier it was 'Approved'.

Now, what should be my plan of action? I guess I need to contact my old employer ask them to withdraw my H1-B Petition.

I definitely did not think of previous petition going back to Initial Review and USCIS did not contact my old employer till now. So, I expected no trouble with this petition.

[rahul412]

may be your old petition went into 'Initial Review' when you attend for the interview.

Contact your old employer and explain him the situation clearly.

[dhoola]

@rahul412: I checked the status and it went to "Initial Review" after the visa interview. Weird. I talked to my employer HR. They got an email from USCIS couple of days ago stating that they have mailed a notice. They just want to wait for that notice and then go for withdrawal.

So, once I get the withdrawal letter, all I need to submit this to consulate along with my Passport, right?

[aneelreddy]

My case is exactly the similar one, except that for my old petition, they sent me a refusal letter to my email. But if I check the status it is still in "Adminstrative processing". Now both my petitions are in Admin processing and waiting for my passport more than 2 months now.

[dhoola]

Hi Aneel,

I've noticed in your ealier posts, that your case has same employer in both the cases.It is just amendment.Is that right?

In my case, this is entirely a fresh petition. But as Rahul predicted, my old petition came to Initial Review after my Visa Interview. Now, I guess all I've to do is to request for a withdrawal of previous petition and submit that letter to consulate/OFC.

[rahul412]

So, once I get the withdrawal letter, all I need to submit this to consulate along with my Passport, right?

Yes, that's what they requested to do so.

[dhoola]

My previous employer sent a letter to USCIS to withdraw the H1-B Petition on Feb 27th and they sent me that letter. I went to chennai OFC and submitted this document on February 28th.

Today when I checked my case status (new petition for which I my stamping interview was successful and then got 221g asking me to withdraw old petition), I've noticed that Status updated today (Mar 4th), but still administrative Processing. Not sure what's happening again.

[rahul412]

"Administrative Processing" is an generic term used by USCIS even to review single document. I guess they are now review that letter so they changed the status.

[Attorney_25]

This would appear to be an invalid request by the consulate, although it may be easier to comply in some cases. You may be able to avoid the withdrawal by retaining a qualfiied immigration attorney to assist, although this may take some time.

[dhoola]

Finally today my status on ceac.state.gov shows

ISSUED