Spouses Of H-1B Visa Holders Can Still Work; Trump Govt. Is Undecided On Their Fate!

Ambiguity on the work status of H-1B visa holder’s spouses still persists, as Trump led US Govt. is still undecided on their fate.

Meanwhile, an interesting research has come up, which claims that if spouses of H-1B visa holders are denied jobs under H4 visa, or any other work visa, then it can seriously impact organizations dependent on H-1B visa holders.

Is this the reason that Trump administration is still undecided on this matter.

Work Status of H-1B Visa Holder’s Spouse Still Undecided!

We have already reported that President Trump wants to deny spouses of H-1B visa holders any work visa in the US. As per their logic, only H-1B visa holders are permitted to work, and their spouses should not work.

Obama Govt. had introduced a new visa rule in 2015, which allowed spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in the US, under H-4 visa.

Department of Homeland Security were supposed to issue a notification regarding this new change, which would have made the things clear for H-1B visa holders. A Notice of Proposed Rule Making was expected from them in the month of June itself.

This is the second time Department of Homeland Security missed the deadline to announce a notification.

An official said, “I have no updates to provide at this time,”

Interestingly, The United States district court of Columbia is already hearing a petition by Save Jobs USA, which opposes President Trump’s decision to terminate H-4 visas, under which spouses of H-1B visa holders can officially and legally work in the US.

In the absence of any official notification, spouses of H-1B visa holders can work as of now, but no doubt, their future is still in limbo.

Terminating H-4 Visa Will Negatively Affect US Firms!

Christopher JL Cunningham of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Pooja B Vijayakumar from the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick are right now doing an interesting research on this aspect.

As per the findings of the research, if US Govt. terminates H-4 visa for spouses of H-1B visa holders, then it can negatively impact the bottomline of US firms, which are dependent on foreign workers.

And the reason is quite obvious: If H-4 visa is terminated, then approximately 100,000 workers will become jobless due to direct or indirect effect.

The study said, “Policy changes like the one being considered for America are often made in the absence of complete information that might help policy makers better understand the true breadth of likely consequences,”

Due to cancellation of spouses’ visa, H-1B visa holder maynot work optimally, which can create serious inbalance between work and home environment, and ultimately, he or she may ditch H-1B visa to go back to their native country.

Every such unsuccessful migrant can cost anywhere between $250,000 to $1 million to the US economy.

We will keep you updated, as we receive more inputs.