Hello all,
I am an individual from South Korea working at a very small startup company in US with a STEM OPT visa which expires in one year.
Boss agreed to sponsor me for green card, and I am in the process of getting the prevailing wage determination. According to the lawyer, my PWD should come out this or next month.
A while ago, I had submitted a working holiday application to Canada as it was my second preferred country to work in, due to its culture being similar to US. (although I will probably have to see that for myself.) Since I can delay going to Canada for up to 1 year while holding the visa, I thought if everything goes south, I would head north instead.
Today I got an email saying I got an invitation to apply for the visa and I am now wondering if I should go through with it or if I should decline the invite.
I will probably cancel the visa if and when I get an h1b lottery (which would allow me time to get green card stuff sorted) or when my PERM is successfully processed since I heard I am not dealing with the USCIS until I actually file I-485.
However, I am wondering if USCIS will take issue with the fact that I had a working holiday visa while PERM was processing. I heard USCIS often work closely with Canada, so would they assume because I had a visa for Canada before I submitted I-485, that I have no intention of being a PR in US?
I know this is probably too early to worry about this as nothing is really decided; I may not even get that working holiday visa because I was in a foreign country when I applied for it (which is something a lot of people experienced, apparently). However, I want to make sure I am not doing anything stupid by submitting the documents for the application in the first place.
tl;dr Would I be hurting my chance of getting a green card by applying for and having a working holiday visa before I-485 is filed?
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/qklch4/would_it_be_a_problem_to_be_holding_a_canadian/