Amid a major development that will largely benefit Indians, the United States gave a green signal to automatic work authorization permits to the wedded partners of those holding H-1B visas.
The move is expected to help thousands of Indian-American women to work in the US without having to wait for longer periods of time. The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) filed the lawsuit in the matter in May while appearing for the immigrant spouses. The settlement was reached by the Department of Homeland Security in a class-action case.
Iterating the issues that the people were facing before this order was passed, Jon Wasden (one of the litigation partners) of the AILA said, “This (H-4 visa holders) is a group that always met the regulatory test for the automatic extension of EADs (employment authorisation documents), but the agency previously prohibited them from that benefit and forced them to wait for reauthorisation. People were suffering. They were losing their high-paying jobs for absolutely no legitimate reason causing harm to them and US businesses.”
This would mean that spouses of L-1 and H1-B visa holders, those who currently hold L-2 and H-4 type visas, would not lose their jobs due to delay in renewing their EAD. Under the new terms, if they timely apply for the renewals, they will be eligible to enjoy their H-4 visa status even after their EAD gets expired. Moreover, they also qualify for upto 3 months (or 180 days) of extension.
Nevertheless, this auto-extension will be granted based on the earlier date of either of the following- approval or rejection of the EAD application, 180 days from the existing EAD’s expiry date or the end of their H-4 status.
“Although this is a giant achievement, the parties’ agreement will further result in a massive change in position for the USCIS, which now recognises that L-2 spouses enjoy automatic work authorisation incident to status, meaning these spouses of executive and managers will no longer have to apply for employment authorisation prior to working in the United States,” AILA said in a statement.
Expressing the 15 plaintiffs’ joy over the order favouring them, the AILA director of federal litigation, Jesse Bless, said, “We are delighted to have reached this agreement, which includes relief for H-4 spouses, through our litigation efforts with Wasden Banias and Steven Brown. It is gratifying that the administration saw that settling the litigation for non-immigrant spouses was something that should be done, and done quickly.”
During Obama’s term, 90,000 people from specific categories of the H-1B visa holders’ spouses had received work authorizations- most of these were Indian-American women.
