In yet another immigration-friendly decision, the Biden administration has decided to issue automatic work authorization licenses to spouses of H-1B visa holders, a move that will benefit thousands of Indian-American women. In this regard, the Department of Homeland Security struck a settlement in a class-action lawsuit launched last summer on behalf of immigrant spouses by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).
This (H-4 visa holders) is a group that has always met the regulation standard for an automatic extension of EADs (employment authorization documents), but the government previously barred them from receiving that advantage and obliged them to wait for reauthorization. People were in distress. They were losing high-paying positions for no justifiable reason, inflicting harm to people and US firms,” claimed AILA’s Jon Wasden.
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The litigation was successful in overturning a US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) policy that barred H-4 spouses from obtaining automatic extensions of their employment authorization while stand-alone EAD applications were pending. Although this is a huge accomplishment, the parties’ agreement will also result in a massive shift in position for the USCIS, which now recognizes that L-2 spouses enjoy automatic work authorization incident to status, which means these spouses of executives and managers will no longer have to apply for employment authorization before working in the US, according to AILA.
They are thrilled to have obtained this agreement, which provides relief for H-4 spouses, as a result of our lawsuit work with Wasden Banias and Steven Brown. It is heartening that the administration recognized that resolving the litigation for non-immigrant spouses was something that needed to be done promptly, according to Jesse Bless, AILA director of federal litigation. More than 90,000 H-4 visa holders have gained work authorization so far, with the vast majority of them being Indian-American women.
