Biden Administration Has Withdrawn Trump-Era Move to Rescind Work Authorization for H-4 Spouses

The Biden administration has withdrawn a Trump-era regulation that would have rescinded work authorization for H-4 visa holders. On January 25, 2021, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which is under the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), withdrew the proposed regulation titled, "Removing H-4 Dependent Spouses from the Class of Aliens Eligible for Employment Authorization.” Although the Trump administration had announced they would seek to remove the H-4 work authorization, they were not able to complete the process. Since according to a 2018 report by Congressional Research Service (CRS), ninety-three per cent of approved applications for H-4 employment authorization were issued to Indian nationals, this move especially welcomed by the Indian immigrant community.

New York Times: "A Mother’s Love? Of Course. Her Citizenship? Not So Fast"

Twenty-seven countries around the world do not allow or limit the ability of mothers to pass on their citizenship to their children and a non-citizen spouse, according to data from the United Nations. In countries such as Iran and Qatar, for example, restrictive laws state that women cannot pass citizenship onto their children even if the children are left stateless, while in Nepal or the United Arab Emirates, there are exceptions if the father is unknown or stateless himself. Such laws restricting citizenship can potentially leave children and stateless parents without identity documents, access to education, health care, or employment. The New York Times explains:

The laws are not just a measure of the unequal treatment of women. They can also have grievous consequences for the children who, as citizens of nowhere, may be kept from being able to go to school. Syrian refugees born in Lebanon, for instance, may be in especially dire straits because so many of their fathers are dead or missing; Lebanon and Syria are among the 27 countries, and Lebanon is among the most restrictive.

While some countries will let a woman pass on citizenship when she is unmarried—and prevent her from doing so when married—advocacy group Equality Now says this reinforces the belief that “a woman, once married, loses her independent identity[.]”

Examining the UN data and other sources, the Pew Research Center found that these types of laws and policies preventing women from transmitting citizenship were present in most countries around the world sixty years ago. Gradually countries have revised their laws, and recently in the past five years, multiple countries, including Kenya, Monaco, Yemen and Senegal, have decided to change their laws to allow women to transmit citizenship. Only last month, Suriname changed its law and now allows women to transmit citizenship to children and non-citizen spouses.

Such restrictions regarding citizenship are most common in the Middle East and North Africa, where twelve out of twenty countries have restrictive nationality laws. In Jordan, the law prohibits women married to non-citizens from passing citizenship to their children. This potentially affects the 84,711 Jordanian women who are married to non-citizens and their 338,000 children, a figure from a recent statement from the country’s Interior Ministry. Laws in Saudi Arabia prevent women married to non-citizens from transferring citizenship to their children; moreover, they are required to obtain government permission prior to marrying a non-citizen, a rule that also applies to Saudi men who want to marry a non-citizen from outside the Gulf Cooperation Council member states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates). Eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa have laws or policies limiting women’s ability to pass citizenship to their children, even though three of these countries—Burundi, Liberia and Togo—have “enshrined the principle of gender equality” in their constitutions. Men in these listed countries have few if any barriers in transmitting citizenship to their children and non-citizen spouse.

In the Asia-Pacific region five countries have laws or policies limiting women in their ability to pass citizenship to their families. Two in the Americas have similarly restrictive laws, including in the Bahamas, where the law “makes it easier for men with foreign spouses than for women with foreign spouses to transmit citizenship to their children,” according to a State Department Human Rights Report.    

The United Nations tracks citizenship laws as part of its mandate to monitor stateless populations, particularly stateless children who cannot acquire nationality from either parent. While in most circumstances children can obtain nationality from their father, if the father is stateless, the child may also be at risk to become stateless. With nearly one in one hundred people displaced from their homes, the highest amount since World War II, stateless peoples and children are especially vulnerable and at risk.

The Guardian: “Silicon Valley's reluctant housewives: immigration law bars women from work”

For many people landing a job at a tech company in Silicon Valley is a dream come true. Years of hard work, talent, and education have finally paid off and led to coveted positions at prestigious companies (with sweet perks). But not everyone making the move to the US benefits. The Guardian takes a look at H-4 spouses–that is, the spouses of H-1B visa holders–and in particular, the wives of Silicon Valley workers who “are integral to the continued success of the Valley’s multibillion-dollar computing industry – but also entirely invisible to it.” Many of these H-4 holders are the spouses of engineers from around the world who work at companies such as Apple, Google, and Facebook.

The majority of H-4 spouses are not authorized to work in the US (except those whose spouses have reached a certain step of their Green Card application). Therefore, many H-4 spouses give up careers in their home country to follow their spouses who have been offered dream jobs and salaries too good to refuse in the US. One new H-4 arrival tells The Guardian: “Before, I was very career-focused…my career was my identity. Coming here has forced me to ask questions: who am I? What am I good at? What are my hobbies?”

This issue is of particular importance to Indian nationals in the US, who make up 80% of the 125,000 H-4 dependent visas. Sandhya Ravindran, a thirty-eight-year-old Indian woman who has lived in the Bay Area since 2007, says “99%” of her social network comprises other Indian H-4 wives. “Honestly? If I had known what life on an H4 would be like, I would not have come,” she says in The Guardian.

While last year the US government extended employment eligibility to certain H-4 visa holders of spouses who are seeking permanent resident status, many are still unable to work. Heather Zachernuk, a thirty-three-year New Zealander whose husband works for Apple, hasn’t been able to work since she arrived in Silicon Valley. “I feel guilt. So much guilt – for having this lifestyle...for resenting my situation even while it’s also a luxury.” The Guardian concludes: “Set against millions of vulnerable migrants, H4 visa holders are lucky. They are safe, and they are wealthy. But their experiences highlight a community of women pushed to the edges of Silicon Valley by an immigration system focused only on meeting corporations’ needs.”