Washington:
Google is major a determined work by US tech giants to assistance a programme that provides work authorisation for spouses of these possessing H-1B foreign work visas, the most sought soon after amongst Indian IT pros.
Google is joined by 30 other firms to assistance the H-4 EAD (Employment Authorisation Document) programme.
An H-4 visa is issued by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to instant family members (spouse and children below 21 years of age) of the H-1B visa holders.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that enables US firms to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that call for theoretical or technical knowledge. Technology firms rely on it to employ tens of thousands of workers every year from nations like India and China.
“Google is proud to support our nation’s immigrants. We joined 30 other companies to protect the H-4 EAD programme which spurs innovation, creates jobs and opportunities, and helps families,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai tweeted.
Google on Friday filed a legal short in a lawsuit referred to as Save Jobs USA vs US Department of Homeland Security.
Tech firms that signed onto the amicus short involve Adobe, Amazon, Apple, eBay, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, PayPal and Twitter.
“To support this important programme, we are leading an amicus brief with over 40 companies and organisations to preserve and protect the H-4 EAD programme,” Catherine Lacavera, Vice President, Legal, Google, stated in a weblog post.
“This builds on an amicus brief we recently joined in support of a lawsuit filed by the American Immigration Lawyers Association to expedite the delayed processing time of H-4 work authorisations,” she stated.
Kent Walker, Senior Vice President, Global Affairs, Google, stated H-4 EAD authorisations for the spouses of higher-skilled workers assist American firms recruit and retain the world’s ideal talent.
“Today we led a business coalition filing on behalf of 30 companies to preserve and protect the programme,” Mr Walker stated.
“H-4 EADs provide work authorisation to more than 90,000 H-4 visa-holders–more than 90 per cent women. COVID has disproportionately affected women. Ending this programme would make things worse, disrupting careers and reducing wages,” he stated.
“It doesn’t make sense to welcome a person to the US to work but to make it harder for their spouse to work. That hurts their family and hurts our economy now and in the future,” he added.
The plaintiff is Save Jobs USA, a group of laptop or computer workers formerly employed by Southern California Edison and replaced by foreign workers imported on H-1B guest worker visas.
Save Jobs USA filed the lawsuit in 2015. It was delayed as former president Donald Trump’s administration thought of rescinding the H-4 work rule.
A week soon after his inauguration on January 20, US President Joe Biden withdrew a Trump-era rule rescinding work authorisation for H-4 visa holders.
Now, each the plaintiffs and the Biden administration are looking for summary judgment.
In the amicus short, Google stated: “The regulation at issue here the H-4 Rule, US Department of Homeland Security, Employment Authorization for Certain H-4 Dependent Spouses, 80 Fed. Reg. 10,284 (Feb. 25, 2015) provides work authorization to more than 90,000 H-4 visa holders (spouses of certain H-1B visa holders), more than 90 per cent of whom are women.
“Invalidation of this rule would outcome in these talented men and women becoming barred from the workplace, forcibly severing tens of thousands of employment relationships across the nation,” it stated.
The outcomes would be utterly destructive for the households impacted by just one measure, about 87 per cent of these households have made essential life choices on the guarantee of H-4 employment, which includes irrespective of whether to have a youngster and irrespective of whether to get a home, it stated.
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