Permits Foundation welcomes decision on H4 spouse employment authorization
27 January 2021Permits Foundation welcomes the announcement made yesterday that the proposal to rescind work authorization for certain H4 spouses has been withdrawn. We appreciate the swift attention given to this issue by the new administration.
Permits Foundation has been advocating in support of maintaining H4 work access for the past three years, having voiced our concerns to the Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and to the Department of Homeland Security in February 2018. Given the anticipated impact on companies, employees and their families, we recommended against rescinding work access for this subset of H-4 spouses as had been proposed.
We continue to support improved spousal employment authorization processing, alarmed by the length of delays currently experienced by L2 and H4 dependents, potentially putting jobs at risk and families under strain.
We will be making the case to US policy makers to bring about a fair solution enabling these dependents to continue to work and we welcome proposals set out in the US Citizenship Act 2021 that would secure H4 work access via legislation.
