US work permits to H4 visa holders, including Indians, may be revoked in 3 months

The Trump administration has publicly said and also in its court filing that it wants to revoke work permits to H4 visa holders in the US, a significant majority of whom are Indian-Americans and women.

The Trump administration expects to revoke in three months a rule allowing spouses of certain H-1B visa holders to work in the US, most of whom are from India.

DHS told the court it is “making a solid and swift progress in proposing to remove from its regulations certain H-4 spouses of H-1B nonimmigrants as a class of aliens eligible for employment authorisation”. (AP Photo)

This Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told a federal court on Friday that its intention to cancel the rule remains in place and that it “anticipates that the rule (revoking work authorisation for H-4 visa holders) will be submitted to OMB within three months”. OMB, the office of management and budget, oversees US federal budget and performance of federal agencies.

The DHS said it had made “solid and swift progress in proposing to remove from its regulations certain H-4 spouses of H-1B non-immigrants as a class of aliens eligible for employment authorisation”.

The court filing came in a case brought by Save Jobs USA, a group of people who claim to have been displaced by H-1B workers. The case was filed before President Donald Trump took office.

H-4 EAD (employment authorization document) allows spouses of H-1B visa holders who have been cleared for Green Cards, but have not received them yet, to work, by a rule issued by the Obama administration in 2015.

The main beneficiaries of the rule have been spouses of H-1B visa holders from India — 93% of the 126,853 H-4 applications approved till December 2017, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service.

The Trump administration wants to remove the Obama administration rule, arguing it takes away American jobs from Americans, and first announced its intention in fall of 2017 with plans to end it in February 2018.

But he did not follow through yet, leaving those to be impacted under a cloud of uncertainty.