The H-4 EAD Stays – For Now

The Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") has confirmed that it will refrain from issuing draft regulations that would revoke work authorization – or, Employment Authorization Documents ("EADs") – for certain nonimmigrant spouses until at least June 2018. This news comes one week after DHS had indicated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that it planned to issue regulations by the end February to terminate the program. Now, DHS' revocation of H-4 EADs – which have granted nearly 105,000 work permits to spouses of H-1B nonimmigrants since being rolled out almost three years ago – will not come for another three months while it performs additional economic analyses that will inform its drafting of the new policy. We accordingly would not expect H-4 EADs to be revoked until 2019 or later, given the need for notice and comment on any proposed rulemaking.