Possibility of H4 dependent I-94 extension at border office

Hello Anil Gupta- How are you. Greetings!

Could you please share your thoughts on this.

My spouse H4 and H4-EAD validity dates are getting expired soon on 04/01/2022. We already filed renewal applications. And spouse is working currently with a client and she wouldn’t meet the eligibility criteria of 180 days EAD auto extension due to upcoming I-94 expiry with the risk of losing the job.

In this context, I am considering an option of visiting the border office to check if they can extend/update H4 dependent Spouse I-94 validity date to match my recently approved H1 I797 as 04/01/2025. If I-94 is updated to a new date, hopefully she meets the criteria of 180 days auto extension for work authorization as EAD is pending and could continue the job.

  1. Our stamped visas are expired.
  2. Without crossing the border, we would try requesting officer if they could update I-94 for H4 dependent based on I797 validity. It’s a sole decision that has to be made by the officer and it worked very very few for others in the forum. It depends on case-to-case basis, It may or may not work for us either.

Two Questions here:
A. If the I-94 date is updated and extended for both spouse & child, What could happen to existing H4 Spouse, H4 Child and H4 EAD applications we submitted? Whether they would be denied as I-94 is updated for both H4 dependents?

B. Another important one is In case if they update only spouse I-94 and not child I-94 which is also expiring 04/01/20222, consider if spouse H4 I539 already submitted application gets denied due to some reason, do we have a possibility that the child’s H4 application could also be denied as the I539A application Part 1 section person filing information has the child 's mother name. Should I need to file a backup new I539 application H4 for the child before its validity with my name filled in the Part 1 section as a person filling information on the safer part.

C. If back up H4 application is needed to be filed for only for child, can only I539 applied through online (not I539A). Do we have any reference on this forum to check filling application form details only for minor dependent .

Kindly suggest.

Thank you

@anandgopi are you able to find a solution to this?