Time appears nearly up for an estimated 100,000 foreign citizens working in the U.S. under a special authorization for spouses of foreign workers here on the controversial H-1B visa. The federal government, which has been promising since late 2017 to ban these H-4 visa holders from working, has just put out a notice that the new rule will be issued sometime next month.
A public-comment period is expected to follow before the rule would take effect.
Stripping H-4 holders of the right to work — granted in 2015 under former president Barack Obama — is a priority for the administration of President Donald Trump.
“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,” the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration said in a otice about the planned November issuance of the work-ban rule.
Homeland Security has said the planned work ban is part of the implementation of Trump’s “Buy American and Hire American” executive order.
University of Tennessee researchers have reported that 93 percent of H-4 holders are women from India, many with advanced degrees. Critics of the H-4 and H-1B charge that the visas lead to lost jobs and job opportunities for Americans.
Several Bay Area residents on the H-4 have told this news organization that if they can’t work, they will likely leave the U.S. with their families.
Public comment periods for new federal rules typically last 30 to 60 days, but can extend to 180 days or more. Government agencies can finalize rules without public comment under certain circumstances. 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, which rely on H-1B visas for hiring foreign workers — 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.”
