mumbai fridays mass layoff at twitter and the ongoing job cuts at various us technology companies like stripe etc have come as a double blow to the terminated employees who are in the states on an h1b visa the clock is literally ticking for them to find another job in sixty days or face a likely deportation processonce laid off an h1b visa holder has a 60day grace period to find another us job this should be done under an h1b transfer process where the new employer does the sponsorship and relevant paperwork or else the jobseeker will be deported from the us served with pink slip several h1b visa holders are flocking social media to express gratitude for what they had and to reach out to the larger work community and their network for openings the stringent immigration policies are forcing many of them to make fervent appeals for a new job this is not easy to write but here we go i was amongst 50 of the employees affected due to layoffs at twitteri am actively looking for new opportunities in the data and analytics domain layoff comes with a deadline for employees like me on an h1b visa and i have around 60days to find a new role in the us a data software engineer based in san francisco wrote on linkedin similar posts are found across social media including ironically on twitter us immigration attorney robert webber offers some guidance to those laid off workers if you do not have an h1b transfer job offer lined up after about 45days you could start the preparation for filing an i539 application to change status from h1b to b2 to buy time to transition out of the us you will not have authorization to work on this visa so this option is based on the assumption that you can support yourself during this period on your savings the b2 visa is a visitor visa and the maximum stay is six months but it comes with an extension option for a few more months amid downsizing stripe has shown some empathy towards its immigrant workers ceo patrick collison in his note to employees said we know that this situation is particularly tough if youre a visa holder we have extensive dedicated support linked up for those of you here on visaswe will be supporting transitions to nonemployment visas wherever we canwebber says some companies could be paying their laid off employees for a month or two more post the layoff date even in such a scenario it is safer to compute the 60day grace period from the date of the layoff and not the last day you are paid those who were in the queue for a green card especially backlogged indians will face varied challenging situations for some it could even mean starting the process all over again