it is illegal to start working before you have the card in your hand. you could call USCIS and REQUEST them to expedite, but that is only a request and most of the time it is not honored.

kaji sahab · Dec 23, 2010 12:27 AM

thanks kaji sahab for the suggestion...anybody else?

beyourself · Dec 23, 2010 1:26 PM

Kaji is right. if you start w/o the card you might be denied an H1B later. dont take that chance. Take a vacation for a while.

Jai_Nepal · Dec 23, 2010 2:51 PM

You can't work without the OPT card in hand. I also had the same problem. USCIS took exactly 3 months to make a decision on my case (regular, no RFE or anything). Unfortunately my requested starting date was 2 weeks earlier than the decision date. I thought USCIS would make adjustment on the starting date, but they didn't. So I lost 2 weeks of my OPT time. This was in January 2010. A friend of mine also had the same problem this fall, but USCIS somehow adjusted his starting date. I don't understand how USCIS operates.

bengaltiger · Dec 24, 2010 2:34 AM

Bengaltiger, thank you for the information, so in your friends case, what did he do exactly to adjust the timing? Did he call USCIC?

beyourself · Dec 24, 2010 10:50 AM