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The Latest Court Ruling’s Impact On H-1B Spouses And Immigration
A federal judge has ruled in favor of the Department of Homeland Security’s regulation that allows the spouses of H-1B visa holders to work, a significant victory for highly skilled foreign-born professionals, their families and the companies that employ them. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan granted the defendant’s (DHS) motion for summary judgment and denied the plaintiff’s (Save Jobs USA) motion. “Intervenors Immigration Voice and Anujkumar Dhamija, as well as amici curiae comprising more than forty companies and organizations . . . filed briefs in support of Defendant’s motion,” noted the opinion.
“We are thrilled that the Court agreed with our view that the law allows spouses of people here in the United States suffering in decades-long green card backlogs caused by National-Origin based discrimination to at least have the right to work in the United States while they wait in these discriminatory backlogs,” said Immigration Voice President Aman Kapoor in a statement that referenced per-country limits, which lead to longer wait times for employment-based immigrants from certain countries, particularly India.
“The spouses of H-1B visa holders now can have a level of assurance that the work authorization granted them in 2015 will be more difficult for future administrations to take away, since it is based on a regulation that the court has said is a valid exercise of the power Congress delegated to Homeland Security to set the conditions—including work authorization—on admission of nonimmigrants,” according to William Stock of Klasko Immigration Law Partners.