U.S. Visa Rules Will Board More Flair From India


BANGALORE: As part of its efforts to attract and retain highly skilled immigrants from countries such as India, the U.S. announced two proposals, including a rule to extend employment authorization to spouses of certain H-1B (a non-immigrant visa that allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations) workers.

The Obama administration has peacefully made public its intent to use “Executive Authority” to issue new rules for H-1B spouses.

According to a description provided in Hill newspaper, such rules will allow dependent spouses to request employment authorization as long as the H-1B visa holder to whom they are married.

Couples taking into consideration for moving to U.S. have lived through this work-life conflict for as long as the H-1B programme had been in existence. The U.S. law allowed employers to bring in qualified individuals from abroad on temporary work visas, called H-1Bs. 

But it fully ignores the H-1B spouse and grants no privileges at all, other than the right to live with the H-1B employee as a dependent. Introduction of new laws will surely benefit such people.

The Department of Homeland Security believes that these actions together will help to attract new businesses and new investment in the U.S. and ensure that the country has the most skilled workforce in the world.

 

Under existing regulations, U.S. does not provide employment authorization to dependents (also known as H-4 non-immigrants) of H-1B non-immigrant workers.

As in the previous years, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) can issue a maximum of 65,000 H-1B visas, which is most popular among IT professionals and companies in IT services.

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