Close To 70,000 Indian Women May Be Hit As Trump Administration Confirms Plan To Revoke Work Permits To H-4 Visa Holders

The Trump administration on Saturday informed a federal court that it has decided to revoke the work permits granted to H-4 visas holders, who are primarily spouses of H-1B foreign workers, within the next three months.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in its latest court filing, has informed the US District Court in Columbia that it was “making a solid and swift progress in proposing to remove from its regulations on certain H-4 spouses of H-1B non-immigrants as a class of aliens eligible for employment authorisation”.

The decision to revoke work permits to H-4 visa holders, a significant majority of whom are from India, will be a huge setback for New Delhi.

If this Obama-era legislation is repealed, over 70,000 H4 visa-holders stand the risk of losing their work permits. A study by the Migration Policy Institute revealed that around 94 per cent of H-4 visa holders are women and the vast majority - 93 per cent - are from India while four per cent are from China.

The DHS said the new rule would be submitted to the Office of Management of Budget (OMB), White House, within three months. Till then, the department urged the court to keep in abeyance its decision on a lawsuit filed by Save Jobs USA, representing a group of US workers who claim that their jobs have been hit by the policy that was promulgated during the previous administration.

Explaining the reasons for the delay, the US attorney said the DHS’ senior leadership reviewed the proposed rule after the filing of the most recent status report and returned it to US Citizenship and Immigration Services this month for revisions.

“Senior leadership review and the request for revisions is standard practice within the DHS. When the necessary revisions are incorporated, the USCIS will return the proposed rule to the DHS for final clearance and submission to OMB,” he said.