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Amid the federal government’s final push to strip work authorization from an estimated 100,000 foreign citizens who carry the H-4 visa for spouses of workers on the controversial H-1B visa, two Bay Area Congresswomen have re-introduced a bill to keep allowing them to work.
The Department of Homeland Security last week updated a government calendar to say the move to ban H-4 visa holders — the vast majority of them women from India, according to University of Tennessee researchers — was moving into its ultimate stages, with the proposed rule to be published by the end of this month.
On Wednesday, Bay Area representatives Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, and Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, re-introduced the “H-4 Employment Protection Act,” first introduced under the previous Congress in November. The planned work ban would affect “thousands of immigrants in Silicon Valley,” Eshoo’s office said Wednesday in a press release. Lofgren said in the press release that the bill is intended to prevent harm to the economy and the lives of skilled-immigrant families.
“Nobody benefits from this system, least of all the American economy, when H-1B … spouses are prohibited from working,” Lofgren said Wednesday in a press release. “Many of these are accomplished and qualified individuals whose skills we’ll lose to other countries unless the Administration finds a more sensible approach to immigration.”
Bills die in Congress if they don’t become law by the time a Congressional term ends, and if they are to be revived, must be re-introduced under a new Congress. Congressional terms last two years, and the latest one started Jan. 3.
Bearers of the H-4 visa have been caught up in the furor over the H-1B program, as the administration of President Donald Trump cracks down on reported abuses. Major Silicon Valley technology companies rely heavily on the H-1B and push for an expansion to the annual 85,000 cap on new visas, arguing that they need more to secure the world’s top talent. Critics point to reported cases of H-1B workers replacing Americans, and say outsourcers and the tech industry use the visa to supplant U.S. workers with cheaper, foreign labor.
Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Homeland Security, now in federal appeals court, contend that allowing H-4 visa holders to work is bad for American workers. The former Southern California Edison workers claim they were turfed from their jobs after training their H-1B replacements, and argue that employment authorization for H-4 holders deprives U.S. workers of protections against foreign labor by increasing competition for jobs. The authorization was also designed to attract more foreign H-1B workers, adding to the competition, the “Save Jobs U.S.A.” plaintiff group alleged in their legal complaint.
Spouses of H-1B workers on track for green cards have been permitted to work in the U.S. since 2015, after Homeland Security under the administration of former President Barack Obama published a new rule, first proposed in 2011, authorizing their employment.
“Allowing the eligible class of H-4 dependent spouses to work encourages professionals with high demand skills to remain in the country and help spur the innovation and growth of U.S. companies,” the agency said in proposing the rule.
Under the administration of President Donald Trump, Homeland Security has changed its messaging on the H-4. In proposing to remove the work authorization, the agency said in an online notice late last year that, “Some U.S. workers would benefit from this proposed rule by having a better chance at obtaining jobs that some of the population of the H-4 workers currently hold.”
It’s unclear whether the H-4 work ban will proceed according to the schedule updated this month on the federal register. Last week, Migration Policy Institute analyst Sarah Pierce said reports suggested the prohibition rule was awaiting approval from the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which is part of the budget office. According to the law, the information and regulatory affairs office has until June 20 to review the rule, Pierce said. If approved, the rule could be published soon after, Pierce said.
Publication of a draft rule in the federal register ordinarily triggers a public-comment period. Public comment periods for new federal rules typically last 30 to 60 days, but can extend to 180 days or more.
Under certain circumstances, rules can be finalized without a comment period, but Citizenship and Immigration director L. Francis Cissna said in a Sept. 6 letter to the Internet Association — which represents major tech firms such as Facebook and Google — that “the public will be given an opportunity to provide feedback during a notice and comment period on any revisions to regulations that DHS determines are appropriate, including revisions relating to the H-4 Rule.”
However, Cissna last week announced he was resigning, effective June 1, at Trump’s behest. He is expected to be replaced by immigration hardliner and former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli.
