Hi,I have a Accepted a job offer with a US firm. But there has been some delay in the work authorization permit (OPT) processing from US Immigration, I think it is going to take atleast 15-30 more days. So I am unable to join the firm on time, its already late by 12 days. I got this job through a head hunter. Looks like the firm is in desperate need of a guy. Can the firm withdraw the offer and go for some one else.All this while HH was doing the talking with me and the firm, I was not really in touch with HR of the firm. Any comments are welcome, this job is something I do not want to lose.Rgds

If they do, they're not the kind of place you want to work at. It's clearly not your fault, and we for example would wait (and have, in the past).

I strongly suggest you get in touch with the headhunter and ask his view - any decent headhunter (so the minority then!) will know his client well enough to know what their attitude to this sort of thing is. Furthermore if he does not know the answer then he will pick up the phone and find out - after all he is heavily incentivised to make sure this deal goes through. The scenario in which you are in trouble is if you suspect that the same headhunter has introduced another candidate for whom it is easier to get a work permit, in which case the HH is no longer incentivised to make sure you get this job. But if the bank is desperate for someone it suggests you might have some rare skill set that they can't easily find so perhaps less chance the HH has another candidate?

I'm not sure how strict working laws are, but you, when explaining to the firm why you can't start on time, ask if there is anything you could start reading up on or working on yourself. That way you'll hit the ground running slightly faster, and you'll dispel any thoughts that you just want some extra holiday.

Usually written offers are dependent on having the correct work authorization, so i guess they could withdraw the offer in theory. However, finding someone else would probably take longer than 15-30 days anyway.

As Zmei says, you are finding out early the calibre of manager you have.Some things are on your side...1) Time. If I were your HH, I'd be telling your new boss that the 15/30 days is what they'd have to spend looking again, and he personally would have a lot more interviews to run.2) You HH is no your side in this, he only gets paid when you start.3) You beat others to get this job, retry means hiring second best.gjlipman's idea is very sound, on more than one level.First it means you aren't losing so much time.Second you hit the ground running which means a good first impression.Third, it buys time.Lastly the more investment in you, the less likely they are to walk away.I have to say that your story is not only non-unique but I observe an upward trend.The country to which you are moving to has a government that oscillates between two groups who actually believe in Creationism and that Jews must be in Jerusalem so we can all die according to God's holy will.

Short answer:Contact your local Congressman with a tale of woe. Seriously.Long answer:The 1-year Employment Authorization Document (EAD) system, which is the queue for graduating students and for permanent residents, is currently jammed - in July 2007 the USCIS opened up the queue for "all applicants". Usually one is let into this queue only after standing in the greencard queue for 5 or 6 years, but this one month from July 15th to Aug 15th was a "free for all". Reportedly, 320,000 applicants + their spouses have applied for EAD.Any graduating F1, immigrating genius, Oscar/Nobel winner, asylum seeker etc will have to stand in line behind these people. (There is no quota, the bottleneck is just the processing time.)Expect these applicants to apply for extensions every year from now until they are granted permanent residency (greencards), so ETA for a fix is something like 30 years.Unless the bureaucracy gets its act together and processes applications faster. Yeah, right!

QuoteOriginally posted by: ArthurDentShort answer:Contact your local Congressman with a tale of woe. Seriously.Long answer:The 1-year Employment Authorization Document (EAD) system, which is the queue for graduating students and for permanent residents, is currently jammed - in July 2007 the USCIS opened up the queue for "all applicants". Usually one is let into this queue only after standing in the greencard queue for 5 or 6 years, but this one month from July 15th to Aug 15th was a "free for all". Reportedly, 320,000 applicants + their spouses have applied for EAD.Any graduating F1, immigrating genius, Oscar/Nobel winner, asylum seeker etc will have to stand in line behind these people. (There is no quota, the bottleneck is just the processing time.)Expect these applicants to apply for extensions every year from now until they are granted permanent residency (greencards), so ETA for a fix is something like 30 years.Unless the bureaucracy gets its act together and processes applications faster. Yeah, right!The local congressman probably wants him to get out of the country for "stealing" the job from a hard working American whose skill set is Cobol on an OS/2 machine.I do not know if you have been reading the H1B + green card fiasco, but 2 days back USCIS released data saying that EB2 category (under which you will apply for a permanent residency) has retrogressed to 2000. This means, that people who have applied in 2000 are getting their application processed now. Additionally, it is to grow worse over the year because of the July 2007 generosity. Both the quotas for H1B are likely to be oversubscribed many times over this April 1. If I were you, I would pack my bags, and leave.

Wow. That's much worse than when I checked some months back. pterodactyl: what country were you born in? Hope it is not India/China. See bulletin for reason!Several Senators/Congresspersons in CA/NY/NJ are supposedly "immigrant friendly", this information is from people that have called the politicians' office asking them to lubricate the wheels of the INS in pre-911 days. Might be a very different story now.Researchers can try for O1 / J1 visas. Another option is to work in a non-US location for a year and transfer to the US on an L1 / B1 visa. Perhaps all banks will soon have a mandatory first year "training" in Asia / Europe before NYC...DCFC: The country to which you are moving to has a government that oscillates between two groups who actually believe in Creationism and that Jews must be in Jerusalem so we can all die according to God's holy will. That's bad, but it has nothing to do with the visa fiasco -- as India and China get more prosperous, it now becomes feasible for more people to aspire to work in the US of A, at least temporarily, if not permanently.

QuoteOriginally posted by: veeruthakurThe local congressman probably wants him to get out of the country for "stealing" the job from a hard working American whose skill set is Cobol on an OS/2 machine.Doubtful. The congressmen who are making lots of noise are usually in out of the way places whose main industries pay near minimum wage. Congressmen whose districts depend on high tech workers are usually very immigrant friendly.Talk to your manager, who will probably have you talk to the legal department who will push things forward. Financial institutions do not have a shortage of lawyers, and they larger ones have immigration lawyers on staff. If you have a competent manager, they are not going to drop you if you are going to be delayed two or three weeks.

I am from India. I think, getting an MS-OPT EAD should not be that big an issue. The visa bulletin was definitely new to me and did scare me a lil, need to figure this out. Anyway guys, thanks for the advice.Wouldn't mind moving back to India. Though ideally, I would like to work here for a while: 4-5 yrs may be. Finance industry is picking up there too, I hear of respectable pays and reasonable work profiles. Though things like working in a Hedge Fund might remain a dream.

QuoteOriginally posted by: pterodactylHi,I have a Accepted a job offer with a US firm. But there has been some delay in the work authorization permit (OPT) processing from US Immigration, I think it is going to take atleast 15-30 more days. So I am unable to join the firm on time, its already late by 12 days. I got this job through a head hunter. Looks like the firm is in desperate need of a guy. Can the firm withdraw the offer and go for some one else.All this while HH was doing the talking with me and the firm, I was not really in touch with HR of the firm. Any comments are welcome, this job is something I do not want to lose.RgdsI didn't read the whole thread, so I'm not sure if anyone already recommended this to you, but your problem has a standard solution. You take your offer and fax it to your service center with a request for expedite processing. It usually works. I did it and my OPT was approved on the second day after I sent a fax. It takes about 10 days to receive the card in mail after approval.