The United States government has told a federal court that its decision to revoke work permits to H-4 visa holders, who are primarily spouses of H-1B visa holders, will be implemented within the next three months.
According to a report by the Press Trust of India, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in its latest court filing on Friday told the US District Court in District of Columbia that it was “making a solid and swift progress in proposing to remove from its regulations certain H-4 spouses of H-1B non-immigrants as a class of aliens eligible for employment authorisation”.
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 such a policy of the government that was promulgated during the previous Obama administration.
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The Trump administration has publicly said and also in its court filing that it wants to revoke work permits to H4 visa holders, a significant majority of whom are Indian-Americans and women.
This move could have a devastating impact on the tens of thousands of Indians working in the US. The move to end the Obama-era rule could have an impact on more than 70,000 H-4 visas holders, who have work permits.
This is for the third time that the Department of Homeland has informed the court about the delay in issue of Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM). The DHS has filed three status reports — on February 28, May 22, and August 20. The next status report is due on November 19.
Recently, the United States ‘warned’ India that they will have to face sanctions if they purchases weapons and defence systems from Russia.
Randall Schriver, the Pentagon’s top Asia official, called into question on Wednesday the idea that the US would protect its relationship with India and that it will be insulated from any fallout if the purchase happens.
“I would say that is a bit misleading. We would still have very significant concerns if India pursued major new platforms and systems (from Russia),” Schriver said at a think-tank event, according to Reuters news agency.
