Please help me figure out AP extension logistic!

[Anonymous]

Our AP arrived in early July (about 4 months ago) and after a rough start she is pretty awesome! My whole family love her and I am starting to consider extending with her. However there are some logistical issues.
-Her U.S. visa expires in March 2020 (because we matched pretty early and that is when she got her visa)- We are traveling at the end of July 2020 for 3 weeks to Europe and want to take her with us. We had originally planned to go without AP and get our next AP after we get back home in August.
- My understanding is that In order to be able to come back in the U.S. in August she needs a new visa Stamp.

Yes. You will always need a valid J-1 entry visa in order to re-enter the country. (With the exception of travel to Mexico/Canada that qualifies for automatic revalidation, but this would not work for a Europe trip).

- How do we do that? Is she supposed to go back to Brazil? Can she extend in Canada? if yes how soon? We are actually traveling with her to Canada for Christmas but this might be too soon to extend.

It's generally better to apply in your home country. Applying as a third country national can subject an applicant to increased scrutiny because the consular officers would be less familiar with the documents/country background. Plus you don't want to get stuck in Canada if it ends up taking a while.

- Also if she need to go to Brazil, can she already get an extension while still in her first year?  Like in April 2020? I could give her off around Easter to go get a new Visa, Is there a chance she could get stuck in Brazil?

I'm familiar with other J categories (not au pairs) but for other Js, we can extend the DS-2019 as soon as the program extension is approved. The consular officers are looking at the DS-2019 end dates when they determine the visa validity dates, so if you can extend the DS-2019 that would be better. Yes, there always is a chance she could get stuck while applying for a new visa...normally it only takes a few days for the visa to be put in the passport after the interview and couriered back, but there is always the chance that it could get stuck in administrative processing (which can take weeks/months). Unlikely, but possible.

If you have any experience with this please let me help me figure out. I could reach out to our LCC but she usually don't know details regarding visa issues.

TIA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Our AP arrived in early July (about 4 months ago) and after a rough start she is pretty awesome! My whole family love her and I am starting to consider extending with her. However there are some logistical issues.
-Her U.S. visa expires in March 2020 (because we matched pretty early and that is when she got her visa)- We are traveling at the end of July 2020 for 3 weeks to Europe and want to take her with us. We had originally planned to go without AP and get our next AP after we get back home in August.
- My understanding is that In order to be able to come back in the U.S. in August she needs a new visa Stamp.

Yes. You will always need a valid J-1 entry visa in order to re-enter the country. (With the exception of travel to Mexico/Canada that qualifies for automatic revalidation, but this would not work for a Europe trip).

- How do we do that? Is she supposed to go back to Brazil? Can she extend in Canada? if yes how soon? We are actually traveling with her to Canada for Christmas but this might be too soon to extend.

It's generally better to apply in your home country. Applying as a third country national can subject an applicant to increased scrutiny because the consular officers would be less familiar with the documents/country background. Plus you don't want to get stuck in Canada if it ends up taking a while.

- Also if she need to go to Brazil, can she already get an extension while still in her first year?  Like in April 2020? I could give her off around Easter to go get a new Visa, Is there a chance she could get stuck in Brazil?

I'm familiar with other J categories (not au pairs) but for other Js, we can extend the DS-2019 as soon as the program extension is approved. The consular officers are looking at the DS-2019 end dates when they determine the visa validity dates, so if you can extend the DS-2019 that would be better. Yes, there always is a chance she could get stuck while applying for a new visa...normally it only takes a few days for the visa to be put in the passport after the interview and couriered back, but there is always the chance that it could get stuck in administrative processing (which can take weeks/months). Unlikely, but possible.

If you have any experience with this please let me help me figure out. I could reach out to our LCC but she usually don't know details regarding visa issues.

TIA

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