Lawmakers back visa holders’ work rights
More than a quarter of California’s members of Congress have sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security urging the agency not to go forward with its plans to revoke work eligibility for spouses of H-1B visa holders.
The letter, signed by 15 of California’s 53 representatives, is aimed at stopping the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back an Obama-era rule that created work permits for these spouses, who come to the U.S. on an H-4 visa. Before the rule was enacted in 2015, these spouses were unable to hold a job or Social Security number as they waited for their green cards — a process that can take years for foreigners from countries like India and China.
This is one of the few public statements made in support of the H-4 work authorization since the Trump administration began working on plans to do away with the work permits.
The signatories include Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo of Palo Alto, Zoe Lofgren of San Jose and Ro Khanna of Fremont. They wrote that rescinding employment authorization for spouses of H-1B holders would remove an important incentive for highly skilled immigrants to stay in the U.S. — or come here in the first place.
“Over 10 million Californians are foreign born, and without them we would not have companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Qualcomm which have made California’s economy the sixth largest in the world,” the letter reads. “In many areas where these high-tech professionals live, such as Silicon Valley, it is nearly impossible for a family to live on one income.”
A spokeswoman for Eshoo’s office said it has not received a response from the Homeland Security Department. A
spokeswoman for the department declined to comment, but the department said this month that it plans to propose a rule regarding the work authorization in June. Once that is proposed, a public notice and comment period will follow.
A delegation of Massachusetts representatives sent a similar letter to the department in January.
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 41,526 H-4 visa holders were granted work permits in fiscal year 2016. It is unclear how many of those permits are being used in California. But the Bay Area has one of the largest concentrations of H-1B holders in the U.S., since many Silicon Valley companies rely on foreign engineers who come to the country on the visas to staff crucial and hard-to-fill positions.