On February 20, 2019, the Trump administration sent a proposed rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review that would halt work authorization for H-4 spouses of H-1B visa holders in the United States. If OMB approves, the administration is expected to move forward with the regulatory process, including publication of the proposed rule in the Federal Register and requesting public comments. Publication of a final rule could take months, and new legislation or lawsuits could have an impact. It is also unclear whether the more than 90,000 current H-4 spouses with work authorization, mostly women from India, will be exempted from the final rule. Historically, in similar situations, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has allowed current EADs to expire. As of now, H-4 visa holders can still apply for and work under H-4 EADs.
According to information DHS filed with OMB, “DHS anticipates that there would be two primary impacts [of the rule] that DHS can estimate and quantify: the cost-savings accruing to forgone future filings by certain H-4 dependent spouses, and labor turnover costs that employers of H-4 workers could incur when their employees’ EADs [employment authorization documents] are terminated. Some U.S. workers would benefit from this proposed rule by having a better chance at obtaining jobs that some of the population of the H-4 workers currently hold, as the proposed rule would no longer allow H-4 workers to enter the labor market early.â€
Some companies are working with their employees to seek alternatives. For example, according to Bloomberg Law, Facebook spokesperson Anthony Harrison said, “Our objective is to always obtain independent work authorization for employees where possible and we are actively working with employees who might be impacted.â€
The Trump administration has long vowed to rescind the H-4 work authorization program, which has allowed H-4 spouses to apply for EADs since 2015. It is unclear what prompted the sudden move forward with the rule, after a long delay. In December, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed a lawsuit against the H-4 program to proceed. That case was filed by “Save Jobs USA,†a group of technology workers who say the H-4 program takes away jobs for U.S. workers. Natalie Tynan, a former DHS employee, said, “In general from an agency’s perspective, the agency prefers to issue its regulations rather than have the courts opine on what the regulations should say. So any opportunity to moot out litigation is a positive one for the agency.â€
For California in particular, 30,000 visas are at stake. Fifteen House of Representatives members from California signed a letter in March 2018 urging the Trump administration not to kill the H-4 program. Several of them recently introduced a new bill to protect the program, the “H-4 Employment Protection Act†(H.R. 7150).
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