Trump administration to end permits for families of H-1 B Visa holders in 90 days

The United States President Donald Trump administration on Friday informed a federal court that the decision to revoke work permits to H-4 visa holders, involving a significant number of Indian citizen is likely to come within the next 90 days.  The H-4 visas holder, are primarily spouses of H-1B foreign guest workers.

According to the report, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in its latest court filing on Friday informed the US District Court in District of Columbia that it was “making a 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,” reported PTI.

This new rule would be submitted to the Office of Management of Budget (OMB), White House, within the next three months. Till that time, The DHS also requested the court to keep in abeyance its decision on a lawsuit filed by Save Jobs USA, a group representing US workers, who claim that their jobs have been hit by this policy of the government that was promulgated during the previous Obama administration.

This is not the first time when the Department of Homeland had told the court about the delay in issue of Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM). This was the third time,  DHS has filed three status reports dated on February 28, May 22, and August 20. The next status report is due on November 19, this year.

While elaborating the reason behind the delay, the US attorney told PTI that, “Since the filing of the most recent status report, the DHS’s senior leadership reviewed the proposed rule and returned it to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) this month for revisions.”

“Senior leadership review and the request for revisions is standard practice within the DHS. When the necessary revisions are incorporated, the USCIS will return the proposed rule to the DHS for final clearance and submission to OMB,” he quoted as saying to PTI.

The group Save Jobs USA seeking an early decision from the court and arguing that the longer the case remains in abeyance, the greater the possible harm to US workers.

The Congressional Research Service said in its recent report, based on information obtained from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), “Ninety-three per cent of approved applications for H-4 employment authorisation were issued to individuals born in India, and five per cent were issued to individuals born in China. Individuals born in all other countries combined make up the remaining two per cent of approved applications.”

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