January 13, 2003 - On December 13, 2002, Berry, Appleman & Leiden, along with The Law Office of Mitchell Green, filed a class action lawsuit in United States District Court in Los Angeles to confirm the right of H-1B workers to apply for extensions of status to reclaim time spent physically outside of the United States.

H-1Bs are only permitted to extend their status for a maximum total of six years. However, the wording of the controlling statute and regulation specifies that this six-year period is for H-1B status spent “in the United States”. For a long time, INS followed the language of the law and permitted H-1Bs to reclaim time spent outside of the United States during the period of their approved H-1B status. A few years ago however, the agency started to deny such applications. Despite repeated attempts by the legal community to convince the INS to follow the law, and despite at least two losses in federal court on this issue, the agency has continued to deny these cases.

“As a result of the hardship that this has been creating for clients of BAL, we have decided to take it upon ourselves to file this lawsuit,” said Jeff Appleman, the BAL partner in charge of this suit. As this case progresses we will post updates on our website.