My spouse is currently on H1B (academic, started in July 2023). He was on STEM OPT prior to that.
He worked for employer A from Sep 2020 to April 2021 full time (from May 2021 to May 2023, he was paid as a part time consultant - 1 hour/week at the same company and was given 1099-NEC for the tax years 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, but did not perform any work at all, and was just on their company payroll/website).
He worked for employer B from May 2021 to Feb 2023 full time.
He is working for his current employer since May 2023, his H1B was approved since July 2023.
We are planning to go to India in Dec 2024 for visa stamping and we realized a few issues based on the above:
During his OPT, his I-20 mentioned employer A only from Sep 2020 to April 2021 and does not mention it beyond that while he was paid as a consultant . The subsequent I-20s have employer B followed by employer C listed, but not employer A. He informed his DSO, and his DSO said it would not be as issue to work for another employer, but he did not report it on his I-20 since it was 1 hour/week.
He filled out his i-983 in 2020 with employer A, with employer B alone in 2021 and 2022 and with employer C in 2023 (with who is is on an H1B with).
Secondly, he was paid till Sep 15 2023 from employer A and he only contacted employer A to stop payment from Sep 15 (he assumed that his H1B started from Oct 1), so there were a few months when employer A payments overlapped with Employer C H1B payments.
Is this considered unauthorized work (both while on F1 as well as H1B), and is there a way for us to fix it (he was thinking of returning the payment from May 2023 till Sep 15 2023, the duration when he started with employer C). Should we not risk it to go get our visa stamped and/or will we be deported at POE?
He has started his GC process with EB1-A, so we might get a green card in 4-5 years.
We’ve been having sleepless nights due to this oversight and would like any advice on what to do.
TIA!