By Kenneth Tiven
Federal district court judge Tanya Chutkan has ruled that spouses of H1B workers are entitled to legally be employed. This perhaps helps the thousands of workers retrenched as the technology sector slows development for the future by reducing staff to increase profitability now. Because H1B visas are attached to employment, this will not help those who are forced to leave USA because they lost employment. Rather it helps NRI workers facing the rising cost for food, rent and energy.
Her ruling came in a lawsuit filed by American Immigration Council, a lobbying organization that wants to eliminate guest workers in a campaign titled, “Save Our Jobs.” It disingenuously claims it wants to help permanent legal immigrants already here.
Judge Chutkan came to USA as a child from Jamaica and perhaps has a better sense of immigrant life than many judges. Her decision says that since Congress had expressly and knowingly empowered the US government to authorise spousal employment for similar visa classes that this further manifests Congress’ approval of a federal agency exercising that authority.
The Department of Homeland Security and its predecessors have authorized employment not just for students, but also for their spouses and dependents, noted Judge Chutkan in the ruling.
This is the core of her dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Save Jobs USA which had approached the court to dismiss the Obama-era regulation that gave employment authorization cards to spouses of certain categories of H-1B visa holders. Tech companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft had opposed the Save Our Jobs lawsuit. Save Jobs USA plans to appeal the court ruling.
—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels