Two work locations on h1 petition

[ustocanada49]

Hi All,


I have seen a post somewhere that said we can put two locations as work places on the H1 extension petition.

Can we put both company and home address (not in same MSA)?

If yes, which MSA would the pay be based on? Office or home address?

In this case, if the home address is on the border, can we commute to US daily like Canada-Windsor guys do? Company office would be 3 hours away from border but we would be going to our second work location that is home.

Thanks

 

[DEEPCUR]

You can have two addresses in your petition, but if you work in client model, you'll have to get client letter with this address in your client letter as well.

On top of that, you also need to provide an itinerary on where you will be working for the length of the petition. Like on which day which location you'll work from. I'm not sure if USCIS is still asking for this after a litigation that stopped from asking itineraries, but you never know. I know people who got denied for failing to provide itinerary after including two work locations in the petitions.

Another problem putting home location is USCIS site visits. If it's your client location, the front desk or security would cover for you and connect to concerned people for your employment verification. But if they show up to your home work when you are not present, it could cause unnecessary stress to you.

Having said all of this, I strongly recommend not to add home location unless your employer insists you to be in US daily for tax purposes. You could travel whenever required directly to your client location. Otherwise daily from one home to another home might be completely unnecessary and needless stress with paperwork.

 

[ustocanada49]

I am not in a EVC model. Its a H1 Independent US company. Its has thousands of employees in US but less than 40 H1s as far as I know.

I do plan to just rent a room across the border in USA and do plan on commuting daily from Canadian side of the border to the other. The commute would be 15-20 mins (if nexus is used)

The only reason I am planning on this is because at the time of H1 extension, we need to provide home address and my home address wold be hours away in Canada from the US office, if I provide a Canadian one. I have heard that the home address has to be within commutable distance from work location.

And also, I didnt want to involve international situation with my employer as it is a corporate and they like things if they are kept simple. A lot of my American colleagues are working from different states now due to Covid WFH rule anyway and they wont care much if I just ask them to put another address in the petition.

I am also thinking about what you suggested- Just travel when needed to client location. But, if USCIS guys visit and I am not at office (since I will be working from Canada), wouldnt that be an issue?I think I can just rent that room close to my office in that case and mention that as home address.

 

[DEEPCUR]

You are right about the residence part being at a commutable distance. So to deal with that you should give an address that's close to your employer work location as home address. You can get some sort of shared accommodation or provide a friend's address near your employer location. So it works like this.. when you are inside US, you should be within a commutable distance from your work location.

Regarding USCIS site visits to employer location.. if they come and call you, you can very well tell them that you are not in US (and in Canada) at that moment. It won't be illegal because H1 laws are applicable only when someone is inside US. If you tell them that you are in California, sure it's a problem because you are violating your H1 terms by working from a different location not mentioned in your LCA, but not for Canada. They will verify your employment with your HR or manager, or would schedule a different time to come back.

As much as it is tempting to include Detroit home location, I'm not sure how it's going to work if you put your home location and if they knock your door when you are not present there. Also once someone was mentioning that CBP randomly checks your work location by searching it in Google.. not sure what they'd say if they see that the address you provided is an apartment. I'll let people who did that weigh in on it.

I also strongly recommend not to put your Windsor address anywhere for your employer records and keep a local address near your employer workplace to keep it simple in all sense. Your payslip is an important document for US immigration and I'm not sure how things would manifest if a Canadian address starts entering it in long run particularly when the work location is so far from it.

 

[tuhadapeo]

@ustocanada49 - what did you end up doing? Was your petition approved?