I was wondering if anyone of you have had to apply for reinstatement after being out of status. One of my good friends here just had a problem here with that. According to him, he failed to receive a signature on the I-20 for the CPT approval and therefore worked  at the place of employement.He was registered for the class but the only thing that made him out of status was the missing signature on the CPT.He is a very good student and had no prior problem with immigration. He is graduating in december and this just happened few months back. He was asking me about this but I have no clue,I told him, I would post it here so people would help him out. So i am just asking any one if you have any experiences with this. They sent in the  paper work to USICS couple months ago and he is waiting to hear from him. The international advisor and his academic advsior both wrote a strong letter favoring him and supporting the approval of the reinstatement. But now he is panicking and asking my help but I donnt know what to tell him. If anyone reading this could help him out, we would appreciate it. Thanks

 Can someone please respond to this?

Hi Here4life:

Your friend has a work violation. The chances of reinstatment considering a work violation is very less, assuming it's a student fault. Immigration rules says that it's ultimately student responsibility to maintain his/her status, ignorance here can't be an excuse.

Some colleges even don't allow (issue a reinstatment I-20) to apply for reinstatment if they have a work violation. However considering your friend case, since the college is strongly supporting his case and he has good grades/ records (a plus point) to back it up, I feel there is a good chance of getting reinstated. 

I had work violation for working more than 20hrs in the college. I could not apply for reinstatment and had to leave the country within 5 months. I was back in nepal and re-applied for masters and even got the visa. At the port of entry the system does show the violation in status and I was asked about it. I explained them and they didn't had any problem with that, so I was good to enter the country again.

Good luck!  

Hi
Thanks for the reply. I will let him know. he has now less than a semester to go ( he graduates in December 2008), do u think they will take that into consideration. what do u think are the options for him now? I mean he sent in all the paper work in july.

Hi, I wanted to let you know that, my friend's case just got approved. Thank you for your response. He is so excited, he has a job waiting for him after he graduates and now is applying for the OPT. Thank you knockknock for ur response and ur positive comments.