A US district judge has announced that spouses of H-1B visa holders will now be able to work in the US.
She was ruling on the lawsuit filed by Save Jobs USA, which was dismissed.
Spouses of H-1B Visa Holders Allowed To Work in USA
In the course of the proceedings, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed a case brought by Save Jobs USA, which had asked the court to overturn an Obama-era regulation that granted employment authorization cards to spouses of certain types of H-1B visa holders.
The lawsuit had been resisted by tech giants including Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Almost one million work authorizations for spouses of H-1B employees have already been granted by the U.S., the majority of whom are Indians.
The main argument raised by Save Jobs USA, according to Judge Chutkan’s ruling, is that Congress never gave the Department of Homeland Security the authority to permit foreign people on H-4 visas to work while they are in the country.
She noted that this argument, however, is directly contradicted by the Immigration and Nationality Act’s text, decades of executive branch practise, and both explicit and implicit congressional approval of that practise.
Congress Deliberately Authorized the Govt To Approve Employment
According to the judge’s ruling, Congress explicitly and deliberately gave the American government the authority to approve employment as a legitimate precondition for an H-4 spouse’s immigration to the country.
According to her, the federal government’s historic and transparent duty for approving employment for comparable visa classes further demonstrates that Congress has approved the use of that authority by the federal government.
According to Judge Chutkan’s order, the Department of Homeland Security and its predecessors have approved employment not only for students but also for their spouses and dependents.
The judge rejected the complaint brought by Save Jobs USA, writing that the Department of Homeland Security has long granted work permits to wives of foreign government officials and spouses of workers or officers of international organisations.
Ajay Bhutoria, a well-known local figure and supporter of immigrant rights, has praised the court’s decision to permit H1B wives to support their families through employment.
The H1B visa programme is made to make it possible for skilled foreign workers to travel to the country and work for American businesses. But, H1B spouses were not permitted to work until recently, which frequently put a heavy financial burden on families, he noted.
