US Plans Job Authorisation to Spouses of Certain H-1B Workers

As part of its efforts to attract and retain highly skilled immigrants from countries like India, the US on Tuesday announced two proposals, including a rule to extend employment authorisation to spouses of certain H-1B workers.

Together these actions will help attract new businesses and new investment to the US and ensure that the US has the most skilled workforce in the world, the Department of Homeland Security said after the publication of the regulation.

"The proposals announced will encourage highly skilled, specially trained individuals to remain in the United States and continue to support US businesses and the growth of the US economy," said Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

"A concurrent goal is for the US to maintain competitiveness with other countries that attract skilled foreign workers and offer employment authorisation for spouses of skilled workers. American businesses continue to need skilled non-immigrant and immigrant workers," Mayorkas said.

"These two proposed rule changes are an integral part of the Administration's efforts to strengthen entrepreneurship and innovation, and to help the US attract and retain highly skilled immigrants," said US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.

"The fact is, we must do more to retain and attract world-class talent to the US and these regulations put us on a path to doing that. These actions promise to unleash more of the extraordinary contributions that immigrants have always made to America's innovation economy," she added.

Under existing regulations, the US does not provide employment authorisation to dependents (also known as H-4 non-immigrants) of H-1B non-immigrant workers.

The change proposed, would allow H-4 dependent spouses of certain H-1B non-immigrant workers to request employment authorisation, as long as the H-1B worker has already started the process of seeking lawful permanent residence through employment.

The H-1B work visas for highly skilled professionals have been most beneficial from IT sector professionals from India.

Eligible individuals would include H-4 dependent spouses of principal H-1B workers who are the beneficiaries of an approved Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker.

The change to the policy would update the regulations to include non-immigrant high-skilled specialty occupation professionals from Chile and Singapore (H-1B1) and from Australia (E-3) in the list of classes of aliens authorised for employment incident to status with a specific employer.

It would clarify that H-1B1 and principal E-3 non-immigrants are allowed to work without having to separately apply to DHS for employment authorisation.

The regulations would allow E-3, H-1B1 and CW-1 non-immigrant workers up to 240 days of continued work authorization beyond the expiration date noted on their Form I-94, Arrival/Departure Record, while the extension request is pending.

The proposals also expands the current list of evidentiary criteria for employment-based first preference (EB-1) outstanding professors and researchers to allow the submission of evidence comparable to the other forms of evidence already listed in the regulations.

"This proposal would harmonise the regulations for EB-1 outstanding professors and researchers with other employment-based immigrant categories that already allow for submission of comparable evidence," the Department of Homeland Security said.