Experts-thoughts welcome

[nurkadur]

A bit of a unique case here. I have been with the same company (large US based advertising agency) as a full time employee. My I 140 is approved but PD is not current (June 2011). My company-through an attorney-filed for extension on 4.4 (regular, Vermont) and it was confirmed delivered via FedEx tracking on April 8th. My I 94 expires on 5.2. We waited for the receipt for three weeks-nothing showed up. The checks were not cashed too. And my I 94 was expiring without me having a valid proof of status. My attorney had two hypotheses-one that it may be taking them longer than usual to issue receipts OR they had mistakenly put my case in the rejected pile, thinking it was cap subject. The reason for the second hypothesis (I think) was the fact that checks were not deposited.

My lawyer also called the USCIS and had them look up my case by name and DOB, and they had no record.

He then suggested that we file another H1 Extension in Premium Processing, with delivery date of today. FedEx tracking shows that it was delivered today i.e. on the day of expiration of i94 (so timely filing)

My question is-what happens if USCIS adjudicates this petition in the next 10 days (since its premium) and then picks up the older petition too. My lawyer said that the minute they know about checks getting cashed for the previous petition, they will withdraw it immediately. Does anyone foresee any issues? Once my PP is approved, and at some point we withdraw the old petition(if it shows up)-will that change my status in any way?

Since the old petition is not in the system there was no way to withdraw it. Also my lawyer felt that the strategy of waiting and watching might be risky, as if USCIS has actually misplaced or miscategorized my petition, it will be hard to convince them to re-accept the petition with the original filing date-given that the checks were not cashed and FedEx is the only proof.

We did reference the old petition in the cover letter. FYI. Thoughts? Pontevecchio/JoeF-would love to hear from you on this.

[pontevecchio]

Since the Lawyer has an Officer contact on phone considering PP is being used, you should be fine.

[nurkadur]

Thanks!